We are absolutely committed to continuing with this journal -- and to coming back stronger than ever -- but for a host of reasons, it just isn't possible for us to give the project our very best at this time.
We have cancelled all existing subscriptions, and have done our best to refund any payments we've already received for Unstuck #4. Nevertheless, we're aware that there are many of you out there who have not received a refund.
Our approach to refunds is going to be 100% hassle-free. If you paid for a three-issue subscription -- whether by PayPal, by check, or in cash -- and you would prefer not to wait until 2016 and 2017 to receive your next two issues, please write us at unstuckbooks(at)gmail(dot)com. Use the subject heading "Refund request." Let us know how much we owe you, and we will do our best to honor your request by sending payment over PayPal as soon as we receive your message.
We have a number of (dapper and brilliant) lifetime subscribers, who may justifiably feel frustrated to have received just two issues of Unstuck to this point. If you're in that boat, please email us with whatever refund amount you think is fair, and we will do our best to oblige you. (Alternatively, you could wait this hiatus out, and perhaps come out a hundred books the richer!)
Some of our promised Kickstarter rewards, like the Unstuck Guide to Food and Drink, are delayed, but not terribly delayed. We still plan on fulfilling those orders over the next few months, so hold tight if you can; the books are likely to be very cool. Some of you may be expecting mysterious "donor tokens." Those are still coming as well.
We are permanently closing our Submittable portal. When we reopen for submissions in 2016, we plan to use a different and less costly system. Our distribution model is also likely to change; we expect to sell the revived Unstuck both as an e-book and as a print-on-demand selection at bookstores equipped with the Espresso Book Machine. Our hope is that by substantially reducing our up-front printing costs, we will be able to pay authors at a higher rate. (We are depressed by literary journals' recent shift to an exploitative and regressive business model that relies in part on "contest fees" and "reading fees." We've said often that we would prefer to end Unstuck than to keep it running by picking the pockets of working writers. We still feel that way.)
To wrap it up: thank you again -- to our authors, to our readers, to our many volunteers, and to the bloggers, journalists, and tweeters who have tirelessly spread the word about us --for being willing to get interested in this strange labor of love. Our hope is that Unstuck will still be publishing in some form -- possibly hologram form -- in 2080, as the rising sea swallows up the last of Miami Beach's condominium towers, and a generation of bloggers begins the important work of reappraising the music of Jason Derulo and P!nk.