Editor's delay in reviewing manuscript I have submitted my paper in a journal of Springer on 09 August 2016. The status of my paper as on 22 December 2016 is still “with editor”. 

I have sent many reminder mail to the editor and they finally replied with:


  Your paper is presently being reviewed by the Editorial Board and will be sent to the chosen reviewer for a formal report. Please be assured that your submitted paper is under process. We will keep in communication with you.


Please guide me how to proceed now. Is this is normal time period (more than four months) for an editor to review the paper?
This can happen. There are journals where such decisions are made in meetings, and there is a substantial time between meetings. After all, editors typically have real jobs beside being editors. I am not saying that this is an efficient way of doing things, but it happens. In practice, if I sent a paper out I don't expect a decision within a year.

As to what to do about it, don't sent multiple messages to the editor. They have enough to do as is. If they are professional, they will just ignore your duplicate messages.