Theme issues are in fact e-collections that may span papers published across a range of journals, although usually there is one main target journal for each theme issue. For the main target journal (where the call for papers will be published, if any), select a JMIR journal that is closest to the topic. Do not choose by "impact factor". As theme issues are in fact e-collections, high priority papers can be cascaded to the top journals within the JMIR family, while for example formative papers or protocols can be transferred to JMIR Research Protocols.

Describe how authors will be/are being solicited. For example, if the theme issue is a product of a workshop or conference we would expect some indication on who will select the best contributions for the workshop and invites the authors to submit to the theme issue (a theme issue should have at least 5-10 papers).

You can decide between handling the papers as an active guest "section" editor (including assigning reviewers and making decisions) or you can be an "acquisition editor" only, meaning that you just solicit the article submissions but leave the peer-review and decision-making to JMIR staff editors (you will still be credited as guest editor, but can leave the peer-review/decision making to them). The former is preferred.

Who will pay the Article Processing Fee(s)? You can decide to cover the costs for the theme issue through a sponsor or grant ("sponsored theme issue"), or have the authors pay the APF. We usually give 20% off the regular Article Processing Fees for a theme issue or waive the fee for 1 out of 5 theme issue articles (editors may use this to invite "stars" to publish a paper free of charge). Thus the approximate costs for a theme issue is the APF times number of articles minus 20% (e.g. $1500 * 10= $15.000, minus $3000 (20%) = $12.000).