Awaiting Reviewer Selection

[Manuscript submission]

I recently submitted a manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal. It took a little over a week for my manuscript to go from 1) Awaiting Admin Processing to 2) Awaiting Reviewer Selection. I received an email notification that it had been assigned to an associate editor when it moved to the second stage.

It's been "awaiting reviewer selection" for about a month now. Is this normal or should I be worried? This journal has a pretty good reputation, as of late, but I've heard horror stories about associate editors dragging out the publication process because they delay sending your paper out to peer-reviewers.

What have your experiences been like? What stage normally follows the "awaiting reviewer selection" stage?

I've reviewed papers for journals, but this is the first paper I've submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

[patience is key]

Sometimes the journals forget to update the status for what you see, sometimes it simply takes a while (especially with breaks and everything else during this time of the year). I would wait another month before reaching out to the editor or the person assigned to your manuscript and move on to other pieces/work for now.

[AP]

I've had papers take a week from submission to "under review," I've had papers take two months. One to three weeks is most common, but longer does happen. It's the end of the semester for a lot of us, hard to accept or get to reviews during finals.