Dear all,
I have been trying to publish a few articles from my PhD for a while now. Many colleagues have encouraged me to give my thesis a larger readership and this is my main reason for trying. I also don't have a long track record of publications and I would benefit from a few more.
I am having a terrible experience and I did not expect this at all. I have published before finishing (about work other than my PhD) and found it much easier. Not easy at all, but definitely easier.
I got a few straight desk rejections, which were quite disheartening, to be honest. Two editors even stated the manuscript constituted plagiarism, even though I had been clear about it being part of my thesis. I had also added new parts to the manuscript. I was baffled by this and the colleagues I mentioned this to, were too. How can this happen?
Anyway, I resubmitted my manuscript to another journal and have not had much success. I received requests for major revisions from reviewers and I am not sure I can address them all. This process has frankly undermined my confidence in my thesis' contribution. I would like to answer the comments as best as I can to have a chance to publish my work but I am not sure I can restructure my manuscript this much. Can you please give some suggestions on how I could move forward?
Thank you for your help!

Just asking, did you aim to publish in journals that were a tad bit too high impact factor? Have you tried going for lower tier ones?

Thank you for your reply. In the beginning, I did but I, then, went for some lower ones, too. The journal that requested a ton of revisions is a good one (2 stars out of 4) but not a top one, for sure. It did not seem too high to me, but maybe it was. I am struggling to find a balance between a journal I can genuinely aim for and one that would count towards career progression.