This is a reminder to all HARA members that the deadline for submissions for the 2012 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards is next Tuesday, January 31. You must complete and submit your entry form and submit CDs to the office so that they are received by the office on this date–It is not a “postmarked by” deadline. Please read the submission form carefully, and if you have any questions please contact the HARA office during weedays at (808) 769-8133, or emailing info@nahokuhanohano.org.

This is also a reminder that we experienced technical difficulties with the online submission form in December, and it is possible that we did not receive submissions sent during that time. It is the responsibility of each member to confirm the recpeit of that submission. Please do not wait until the preliminary ballot to come out and discover that your release is not on it! The submission committee is working hard to ensure that all eligible entries are accounted for, but ultimately it is the responsibility of the artist, label and distributor to confirm receipt of each entry.

HARA offers an “email blast” service as well as a mailout service to members. With the email blast, we will distribute an email to all members on our office’s email list. We do not give out our email list to anyone. You submit a .pdf of no more than 500k in size and we will email it from our office. For the mailout service, we can send out postcards, letters, or CD envelopes. You must prepare the mailout materials with proper packing and postage, and we will affix addresses from our member list and mail them out. Again, we do not give out our mailing list to anyone.

Please see the form containing details and the price of these services on our Scribd.com account. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the HARA office.

Aloha members,

It has come to our attention that there has been an issue with the online nomination form for the 2012 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards, and because of a technical glitch, we may not have received all submissions by individuals who used the online form between Dec 7 and Dec 27, 2011. If you did submit an entry using the online form between those dates, please contact the HARA office by email – info(@)nahokuhanohano.org – or by phone – (808) 593-9424 and confirm receipt of your application. The form is working properly now, but we highly suggest that you contact the HARA office after submission to confirm receipt of your nomination.

This is important news for those who will be putting out digital-only releases in December to meet the release deadline for the 2012 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards. Apple’s iTune Connect is how new releases get submitted to iTunes for release. Please note that releases must be *available for sale* by December 31, 2011 in order to be eligible for the awards. It is not enough to have them uploaded by December 31, so please plan ahead if you are going to try to get a digital-only release out and have it eligible for the 2012 awards.