If you are looking for support for the Independent Publisher theme, please make sure that you know which version of the theme you’re using. There are two versions of Independent Publisher with the same name, one that is maintained by Automattic and published to WordPress.com and another that is maintained on GitHub and published to WordPress.org (the original, for which this site exists).
The themes have the same name and the same look, but where you get support for each one is different.
If your site is hosted on WordPress.com and you installed the theme through WordPress.com, then you need to get theme support from WordPress.com. I do not have any access to updating the theme on WordPress.com and I do not have control over that theme or the tweaks that were made to it.
The version of the theme that I’m maintaining (that you can download from this website and see listed at WordPress.org) is meant for self-hosted sites that are running WordPress software downloaded from WordPress.org. This is not the same as the managed-hosting provided by WordPress.com.
So to reiterate, the Independent Publisher theme on WordPress.com is not maintained by me; it’s maintained by Automattic (the owner of WordPress.com). They forked the original Independent Publisher theme and tweaked it for WordPress.com.
If you are using WordPress.com and need support with the Independent Publisher theme, please get theme support from WordPress.com.
Update for Independent Publisher 2: Automattic has released another version of the Independent Publisher theme on WordPress.com and named it Independent Publisher 2. You can get support for Independent Publisher 2 here.