Gene and I have spent a lot of time discussing the future of merchandise here at Overdue Media LLC. Here's what we've decided, but it's subject to change without notice:

1. Bill will automate the most time-consuming parts of the store technology [almost done]
2. We'll hire a customer service person to manage the store on a day-to-day basis [done]
3. We'll move to a model where we take orders all the time but most merchandise is shipped out once every six weeks or so. This is what we're doing with the holiday line - "Orders received by November 17th ship by December 6th." On November 18th you'll see a new (undecided) ship date. This also allows us to do preorders on items we don't plan to keep in stock. [done]
4. But we'll keep a small amount of merchandise (like books and maybe one line of shirts) in stock at iFulfill. We'll ship these daily. This allows us to meet the needs of our readers who must have something right away. You know who you are. [Starting in the new year]

We think this gets us most of what we want. Namely, the branding and P.R. value of our merchandise, the loyalty of our readers, and a tidy income, without digging too much into our increasingly limited free time

So I'm looking at our home page, and I'm thinking, isn't that yesterday's strip? It is. Or rather, was. It's not that I didn't have today's strip ready. In fact I have strips drawn through next week. It's just that I kind of forgot to press that little button on my cool custom strip uploading tool that, well, uploads it. It's done now. Sorry. I'm a little distracted by the new store technology and our holiday line (which is selling like hotcakes), and that's a fact.