ANNOUNCEMENT — PLEASE READ As we close out Volume 2 of Modern English Tanka, we are going to initiate some changes in both the print and digital editions. We have kept the price of MET print edition very low for the first two years, at $12.95 USD for a journal that is a 250–260 page book. That price is not sustainable, however, and we must raise the price, beginning with the next issue, Autumn 2008, to $14.95. As you who purchase the print edition have undoubtedly noticed, we have narrowed the margins and reduced the font size to get as much as possible into each issue. There really is no more we can do to pack more tanka and related materials into that many pages. If the journal were made any longer, shipping and handling costs would jump. For subscribers to the MET print edition, any and all remaining issues on your current subscription will, of course, remain at $12.95 per issue. New subscriptions will be at the increased price of $14.95 each but annual subscriptions will be discounted to $56.00 for four issues plus S&H. We actually considered closing down the digital edition because it has become so labor-intensive to hand-code hundreds of highly-formatted pages in HTML. However, we are very aware that thousands read only the digital edition, so we are changing the process to streamline it. This change is being initiated with the current issue, MET 8. All or virtually all of the poetry pages, articles, and reviews will be PDF pages. That means you will have to read them using the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Most of you undoubtedly have this program already on your PC but for those who do not, you can quickly (and for free) download the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. The contributors’ notes (bio sketches) will be on a single PDF document rather than being linked separately to each poet’s pages. Last, but not least, we will begin offering a PDF ebook of the digital edition for sale, at a price substantially lower than the print edition and available worldwide without shipping and handling costs, losses in transit, etc.. This will be included in the copyrights we acquire when accepting a submission for MET 9 and subsequent issues. The difficulties of buying printed books in some foreign countries has persuaded us to make an ebook version available. Please take this into account when making submissions for MET 9 and afterwards. If anyone who has made an early submission for MET 9 (there are about 4 we received after the MET 8 deadline) does NOT want to grant ebook rights to MET, please contact me to withdraw your submission.