2009 has been a lean year for the magazine, as it has for the country thanks to the recession and the slow economic recovery (assuming we're in one—hard to tell sometimes). We kept the same pay scale as we had before, including the option of a print magazine. But due to reduced donations and funds, this will need to change for 2010.

The good news is we plan on offering the same pay rate. All accepted stories we will pay a flat rate of $5.00 and all accepted poetry will receive $2.00. We wish we could offer more, but being a magazine that is run on donations and volunteer labor (no one gets paid, all money goes toward overhead and paying authors), the reality is until an additional revenue stream comes in, this is the best we can do.

But we want to emphasize that we will continue to offer a great magazine with a good readership, so the author can gain exposure as well as continuing to offer readers great mainstream/literary fiction and poetry that "inspires, uplifts, and enlightens." We appreciate all our great authors for their continued support of the magazine, and we look forward to the day when we can offer payment that more reflects the quality of your work.

The bad news is that we will have to discontinue our print magazine as of January 1, 2010. Consequently, there will be no offers of contributor copies if you are published in 2010 or later. If an author has signed for a contributor copy but doesn't get published until 2010, they will receive the money instead.

We are sad to have to do this, but two facts made the decision necessary. One is simply the lack of volunteer labor and time to put them together. Each issue takes a few hours to put together and then go through the process of uploading to the printer, and then issuing copies for the authors who wished to get paid with them. As some of you are painfully aware, we are way behind on getting the print copies out. So there remains many authors who have yet to receive their pay.

We greatly regret that this has happened, but our volunteer pool of labor, while good intentioned, hasn't had the resources to get this done in a timely fashion. So we have to face the fact that we haven't been able to pull this off in the last several months, and to date we don't see any sign that any of us will be able to do it in the next year either. Consequently, better to stop the bleeding so it can heal than to let it get worse.

The second reason revolves more around economics than anything. The cost to send out a contributor copy to an author is around seven to eight dollars a copy. This is much higher than the cost we are offering to pay for the stories and poetry. So a poet who has been accepted here can cost us almost eight dollars rather than the two dollars our pay scale offers. As mentioned above, our donations can't continue to support that high a pay rate.

Rather than have the print magazines available and not offer contributor copies, and due to the issue in number one, we felt the best route would be to discontinue offering the print version and focus our energy and resources on making the best online magazine we can offer.

We apologize to the authors and poets who have been waiting patiently for their contributor copy of the print magazine. We plan to get these caught up in the near future and pay everyone who has requested one through the contract. We thank you for your patience as our volunteer staff works to get these done in the next few months.

In 2010, we will be focusing on ways to make Haruah the best webzine for mainstream and literary fiction out there on the web. We will continue and look forward to breaking new ground this coming year. Stay turned! We're ready to offer up another great year of fiction and poetry. Don't miss out.


R. L. Copple
Haruah Editors Spokesman