The process of attempting to publish a paper in a refereed journal can be rather stressful. This paper presents a number of personal reflections on the publishing process, with the aim of helping aspiring journal authors to appreciate the nature of the challenge, and some of the requisites for success. The challenges in dealing with referees include the element of luck involved in securing sympathetic referees, the poor quality of the reports prepared by some referees, and the slowness of the review and editorial process. A number of examples from my experiences in agricultural economics journals are presented. These reveal that one of the most important characteristics which a journal author needs is persistence.