Friends,

As part of our continuing efforts to make the discussion forums at YW.Net self-sufficient, DD has sanctioned the first publication anywhere of material from A Wizard of Mars. This material will be available by subscription only: proceeds will go toward the operation and expansion of the Forums.

The first two chapters (because chapter 1 is short) are now available for viewing by those willing to pay a three-month subscription fee of USD $15.00. The first offering represents nearly 10,000 words of material that no one will see until the book is published in the autumn of 2008. (This is a hard publication date, BTW: DD tells us that issues regarding this book with the publisher have been resolved.)

Further chapters will be released in mid-September and mid-October. At that point DD will determine with the publisher whether any further material should be released.

Interested readers should scroll down the main Forum page to access the subscription bar at the bottom. You can either choose the chapter-only option, at USD $15.00 for three months, or the chapter-and-archive option for USD $25.00 per 3 months -- this will also allow access to all messages in the Message Archive forums after they go subscription-only at the end of this month.

Once you've subscribed, access to the Premium Content area is by the "Premium Content" link in the menu bar at the top of the main Forum page.

(Incidentally, we will also be opening a spoiler forum for discussion of this early material.)

Have fun!

I think that a "Wizard of Mars Spoiler Chat Room" will need to be put in place, because I'm sure that when people read the chapters they'll be tempted to talk about them in the main chat room, and spoil it for us people who want to wait until the book actually comes out or can't subscribe to see the chapters.

I know this will sound bad but if a new Spolier chat room is opened for this maybe it should only be accessed by those that have subscribed. It just that if some users know that people are paying and then talking about the chapters, they dont need to pay because they will read what we write about. Does that make sense?
This proberly makes it alot more difficult for Lee to run and managed.

This comment by me sounds really bad now sorry guys.
Fox

Actually I think that's a good idea as well. I didn't think of that. I'm sure there is an option to restrict it to Premium Memberships only.

*Is worried about the one-liner* On second thought... *Relaxes because it's not a one-liner now* )

The last time we had a spoiler chat area, it didn't really get used too much, other than in the first three weeks or so after W@W came out, for the occasional spoiler chat and as a haven from newbies occasionally. I personally don't think that its actually worth having a separate chat area. Its just as easy for the people who have access to the premium content to find other people with access to talk to - be it private chat, spoiler forums, instant messaging, or private message.

And as for restricting it, I don't think its really an option. A second chat would be there so that people knew that spoilers might be mentioned, and I know from experience that I still went in there before I'd actually read W@W.

Mmm... spoiler chat was almost never used last time around (seems a very long time ago that WAW came out) so I'm with Alla on this one.

I think a spoiler forum is more than enough, and actually far more useful given there are very rarely enough people who have read the beginning of AWOM and are online at once, to make for a decent real time chat.