Site News & Announcements

Important Information Included!

Greetings, Members!

This is an important email that all members should take a few moments to read.

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Have you ever noticed that Stories.Com is ALWAYS online?
We're here 24/7 and have been for the past 2+ years. The hardware and network
that run Stories.Com are the best. This is shown by the performance, speed and
up-time of our services. Keeping pace with, even ahead of, growth is difficult
and costly, but we realize its extreme importance to the community.

I'm very proud to say that it has been a full year since Stories.Com last raised
the price of its Upgraded Membership. Over the past year we have added tons
of new features, benefits and enhanced services to this membership level. The
value it provides members far surpasses the low cost of around $5.00 per month.

This new year, we will not be raising the price of our Upgraded Membership!
Further, we do not have any plans to do so in the near future. We will continue
to increase the value of the membership, though, by including more features,
bells and whistles than ever before!

But, and yes, there is a but...
Like most things, hard drive space, backup storage and the processing power
it takes our servers to perform searches, lookups or displays of an item are
all limited.

As members add more items to their portfolios, Stories.Com needs to stay
ahead of the server curve with bigger hard drives to store this additional information.
Even further, we need faster servers to be able to sort the ever growing amount of
data and use it in our online community. The more than 200,000 poems, stories,
forums, journals and images that we host also come with over one million ratings,
a half million reviews and logs that track millions of item views.

In light of this, Stories.Com needs to put limitations on portfolios and asks its members
who are using the most storage space to pay a little more.
         Upgraded Members will have a limit of 250 items.
         Premium Members will have a limit of 1,000 items.
At this time, there is no member with more than 1,000 items, but those Upgraded
Members with more than 250 items will need to move up to a Premium Membership.

These new limits are not yet in effect. They will become active on January 20th, 2003.
This gives members who are already over the limits about 45 days to either remove
some items or move up to Premium Membership. We will not be locking or removing
items from members over these limits for at least three (3) months beyond. This
does not include members who abuse the 45 day grace period we are allowing; please
do not do that because it will not be tolerated.

If we do not place these limits, for the reasons that I have explained above, we will
be forced to continually raise prices on all members. Since these limitations currently
only affect 55 members, that simply would not be fair.

These limits help illustrate Stories.Com's commitment to being around for the long
term; we will stay as the online community for writers for years to come. Without
this foresight, over time, member portfolios would become infinitely large and cause
membership prices for everyone to skyrocket.


Small Increase In Premium Membership Price
Since releasing Premium Memberships in January 2002, we have added numerous
features for authors and conveniences to members. Combined with a new portfolio
limit that is 4 times that of the Upgraded Membership, the Premium Membership price
will be increasing on January 4th, 2003. Until the price is increased, members may
purchase up to one (1) additional year of Premium Membership at its current price.
The price changes will be as follows:

                         Current  --> Beginning January 4th, 2003
          1 month     $15.00 -->  $20.00 (GPs only)
          3 months    $35.00 -->  $45.00 ($15.00 per month)
          6 months    $60.00 -->  $75.00 ($12.50 per month)
         12 months  $110.00 --> $120.00 ($10.00 per month)

         Find out more about Premium Membership ----> Invalid Item 


As we move into the new year, we want to sincerely thank our members for your support
and involvement in the community. We look forward to helping more and more writers
improve their skills, meet new friends and express themselves in an honest, caring
and nuturing environment. Thank You!

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And don't forget to visit our sponsor:
         http://www.FreelanceWriters.Com/
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We wish you and your family the best during this holiday season,
         ~~ The StoryMaster
                   & The StoryMistress