here are a few things that are going on here. First, we don’t ship any current issues ourselves. Fulfillment is handled from the printer. (Back issues is another story.) I’m not sure what’s going on with the missing Sept/Oct 2025 issues. Those were sent out weeks ago, so if you’re missing yours, it is probably because of some hiccup in the postal service. If you have contacted customer service and they haven’t been able to help you or have not gotten back to you, DM here and I’ll see what I can do for you for the Sept/Oct 2025 issue.
If you are a subscriber in the U.S. and are missing your Nov/Dec 2025 issue, let me know. I’ll include it with the Sept/Oct 2025 batch and see if we can get that straightened out for you.
Regarding the Nov/Dec 2025 issue, our Canadian/International customers should have already received this message or one similar to it: “Due to ongoing global delivery challenges, we are unable to guarantee reliable postal delivery of the October 2025 and future issues. Going forward, all international subscriptions will be fulfilled in a digital-only format to ensure consistent and timely access to content. We are working to extend your current subscription term based on the remaining amount of additional postage and shipping you paid for your print + digital subscription. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to resolving this for you.”
For FSM Canadian/International subscribers, this means that some of you will receive a paper copy and some may only receive a digtial version of the Nov/Dec 2025 issue. No, I do not know who or how it was decided, but I suggest you call our customer service number 877-246-4847 or email FineScaleModeler@Omeda.com. Omeda handles our subscription fulfillment and will have insight into your subscriptions that I nor my staff do not. Every Canadian/International subscriber will be delivered digital-only copies starting with the Jan/Feb 2026 issue.
I expect this will not sit well with many of you, and I will honestly tell you it doesn’t sit well with me either. Me saying so publicly will most likely be cause for reprimand. I know how much paper copies mean to our readership and to the brand. However, I also understand that this decision affects all Firecrown titles, not just FSM, and the company is looking for cost savings to allow us to continue to deliver not only FSM, but all of its titles.
So, what can I do?
I’ll help where I can on this, and right now, that’s with the Sept/Oct 2025 issues. Once I’m sure I have all those folks, I’ll forward a single list to a couple of our in-house specialists and have them reach out to you. As far as the Canadian/International subs and deliveries are concerned, that’s best handled by Omeda because that’s where the edtiorial staff will end up forwarding your queries.
I’ll answer what questions I can, and I will ask for answers to the questions I don’t know the answers to. If you have questions, it’s best to DM me because I’ll get a notification.
The team and I will continue to work with some of the best modelers in the world to create the best FSM issues we can, because we believe in the magazine’s mission. We’ll keep supporting shows. We’ll promote the hobby however and whenever we can.
What can you do? Keep supporting FSM. Help see us through this and what we may discover on the other side. If you can’t do that, no matter your reasoning, keep an eye out for issues that may interest you, and pick them up from a newsstand, hobby shop, bookstore, or online.
Again, if you haven’t received this information in a contact directly from Firecrown already, it is coming and I’m out ahead of it.
Tim Kidwell
Editor-in-Chief
FineScale Modeler