Board Thread:The Reference Desk/@comment-4139960-20130612191751/@comment-188432-20130613204734

Tangerineduel wrote: If they debut in the prelude, then that's where they debuted.

Also, I doubt there's a way to work out which was published first as we only have a cover date for DWM and a month and year for the novels. Actually, there's a perfectly straightforward way. The preludes tell us. For instance DWM 201's prelude for White Darkness directly tells us that the publication date is 17 June 1993. DWM 203's prelude for Birthright tells us that publication date was the 19th August. And if you do enough random samples of the preludes, what you find out is that the publication date for all of them was the middle Thurdsay of the month (i.e. the Thursday that comes closed to the 20th without going over).

We've actually been terribly lazy about our release dates of novels. Of course novels are released on a specific day. They aren't just released any old day of the month. It takes precision and organisation to release a novel; it must come on a particular day.

Turns out, though, that amazon.co.uk have actually been assiduous about this. They tend to have the correct date. So just click the ISBN on one of our pages, then find the link for amazon.co.uk, and you'll soon be able to compile a list of exact release dates. Remember, though: if you decide to add precise dates, use the new (releases) dab term on your days of the year. So 17 June (releases), not just 17 June.