Our third issue is now live! Gauntlet Chapter 3 and our subscriber exclusive this month – an Off*Beat mini comic about Paul – are up for subscribers. Check them out! As mentioned earlier, all chapters in an issue are spread out across the Fridays in that month, so stay tuned for more content every week! For this issue, that includes Dire Hearts Chapter 2, a week from today. <3

We’ve also tweaked our paywall, to keep things clearer – instead of a chapter going up on Friday for subscribers and Monday for the rest of the public, the chapter will be opened up to the public the following Friday (in other words, the initial subscriber paywall stays up for a week). This is to keep all of our updates on Fridays, to avoid the confusion of the Monday updates. After that one-week paywall, the chapter is free to read until the next chapter is released to subscribers (usually 3 weeks, unless the creator is taking a month off). That general structure hasn’t changed.

However, in the case of the audio department specifically, we’ve decided to allow extra time for free listening. :) For both Awake and Tokyo Demons Audio, once the one-week paywall is down, streaming will remain free for all the chapters until the book is complete. (Downloads will be available for a charge.) This is so that more people can enjoy our audio series in Year 1 of the magazine; we’re especially excited about the work coming out of that department and want to spread the joy far and wide! We’re doing the majority of our streaming through Bandcamp now. For a list of all available Sparkler audio tracks, check out our new Sparkler Bandcamp page.

Oh, and our yearly memberships (now called “Year+” instead of “Launch”) will stay at $60 for 13 months indefinitely. Some of you have been asking for gift subscriptions, and those should be available in a week or two – we’re still ironing out the final wrinkles in functionality. Sorry for the delay!

After our soft launch last week, we’ve been fixing the little bugs that popped up as soon as we went live. Now we’re happy to say that any store bugs (like not allowing orders from all countries) have been fixed, all backlogged orders of physical products have been shipped, and our shipping staff is back in the office, so all physical products will be shipping at a normal schedule now (usually within 2 business days of an order). For those of you who already purchased from the Sparkler Shop, thank you for your support! And for the rest of you who were waiting for us to get our act together, now the process is smoother than ever. :D

Signing up for a free membership is fixed as well. Either click the “register” button on the righthand column of the site OR on the “memberships” button on the top menu. You’ll be asked if you want to subscribe to the free Sparkler newsletter, which will start this week. And next week – forums!

Since some people are confused about what chapters are available to read right now, here’s some clarification:

Issue #000: This is the preview issue posted right now. Anyone can read the first chapter of Off*Beat, read/listen to all of Tokyo Demons that’s been released over the past two years (much is still hosted on tokyodemons.com), read a preview of Gauntlet, and check out some write-ups/art/character profiles for Dire Hearts and Awake. If you want to read Chapters 2-12 of Off*Beat, which are the rest of Volumes 1-2, you can purchase them as ebooks or paperbacks (which also contain exclusive bonus material). You can also buy the ebook or paperback of Tokyo Demons: Book 1, also with exclusive bonus content, and the first Tokyo Demons Audio set (as a download or CDs).

Issue #1: This will be released in late July. It will be free to read forever, and will contain the following: Off*Beat Chapter 13 (the first chapter of Volume 3), Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 5, and the first chapters of Dire Hearts, Gauntlet, and Awake. This is when we’ll open up paid subscriptions, which are $5 a month and will give you 3 downloadable ebook versions of all written serials (.pdf, .mobi, and .epub) in that month’s issue, and will open up the paywall that hides extra read-only content: like Chapters 2-12 of Off*Beat, a bonus article, and hidden forums. As time goes on, back issues of the magazine and the pile of hidden subscriber exclusives will form a  mountain of treasures.

Also new this week: we’ve opened a new page for anyone who wants to submit fiction pitches to our magazine. If you’ve pitched  to us in the past or want to pitch in the future, we’ve updated our schedules and opened comments so you can directly ask us questions, even if you’re not following us on Twitter. :D

See you soon!