Let’s talk about why your latest Harmonizer is so late and what we’re doing to change that. We ran a Q&A on this subject earlier this summer. I won’t repeat much of what’s there, so if you have any remaining questions, check that post first. For now, here are some basic statements of fact, followed by some details.

Your Harmonizer’s information is not old, it’s just that the cover date has been out of sync.

You’ve still been getting six issues per year, every two months on average, with info that was up to date in the weeks before each issue was sent to the printer. It’s just that ….  (CUE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN) .. if you’d read the previous Q&A, you already know that the actual schedule slippage occurred several years ago as the result of resource decisions made by officers who haven’t worked on Society staff for a long time. (Hint: It’s not any past editor’s fault.)  Just wanted to point out the difference between “causing the slippage” and “failing to fix it in a timely manner.” (DEFENSIVE CRYBABY ALERT OVER) That said, it’s my mess to clean up, and I acknowledge I haven’t been cleaning it up quickly at all.

I feel your pain.

You think YOU find the out-of-synch cover dates embarrassing? The only question staff ever asks me is, “When is the next issue coming out? We’re getting a lot of calls.” I have permanent indents on my bedroom wall because I wake up every work day, remember the day’s date vs. the cover date I’m working on, and the head-banging commences. If you believe heads need cracking to get this problem fixed, consider my cranium thoroughly knocked. My family can tell you, it ain’t a lack of overtime hours that’s responsible for the slow catch-up! (Oops, just let another whiner statement slip in.)

I was naive.

I’m getting probably an 80-to-1 ratio of “Where’s my Harmonizer?” inquiries vs. comments on the issues themselves. That does tend to shift one’s priorities, I must say. At one time, I truly did believe that Harmonizer readers were mostly concerned about having sufficient quality quantity of content, and thus they’d be okay with a slower timeline in getting the cover dates back in sync. (That was not a bitter or defensive statement, by the way–that was truly wrong-headed thinking on my part.) If y’all weren’t so darn nice, maybe I would have woken up and taken the radical action needed much sooner. You’ve waited long enough. Time to get radical.

Issues will be noticeably more in-sync by summer.

How’s this for catch-up? November/December will be submitted to the printer roughly 1 month after the Sept/October issue was released. ONE MONTH. The other issues won’t be quite that close together, but they’ll be coming really fast. You’ll get your Jan/Feb 2010 issue by late February 2010. Your March/April 2010 issue in April 2010. Your May/June issue will likely come before May 2010 is over. Your July/August 2010 issue will come during the month of July. Your Sept/October 2010 issue … well, convention issues take forever, no getting around that. But Nov/Dec. 2010 will still come in November 2010.

We’ll pay a small price for getting issue dates in-sync.

Emphasis on “small.” None of the catch-up issues will be any larger than 28 pages. If schedule demands it, one or two of them might actually be as small as 24 pages. If you feel ripped off by getting fewer pages, remember that you’ll also be getting 7 Harmonizer issues on your doorstep during the year 2010, so as far as total page count for the year, it balances out.

There’s one price you won’t pay.

I still refuse to catch up schedule by way of releasing lower-grade editions. You deserve better than that.  We’ve got a lot of very important things to talk about in the magazine in the mean-time. We’ve still need plenty of story ideas, authors and submissions to the magazine. Please submit any story ideas, suggestions or questions to me at harmonizer@barbershop.org.

Thank you!

Lorin May

Editor, The Harmonizer

Administrator, barbershopHQ.com