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Belfegor said:
a dedicated site for my book The Guide to Dan Brown's The Solomon Key

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How can you call it 'The Guide to Dan Brown's The Solomon Key' when The Solomon Key, quite clearly, hasn't been released and, as far as I can tell, there is no hint as to its content.

While, in all fairness, I get the feeling the book will start with a murder, Langdon and the victim's beautiful relative will embark on a twenty-four hour journey getting facts wrong spouting how the Freemasons did this, did that, etc. until we find out that it wasn't the sinister Freemason monk assassin that is the killer but Langdon's pseudo-knowledgable friend who he has visited whilst on the run. Case solved, Langdon feels all spiritual, and then kids hit websites to tell us how grate [sic] a writer Dan Brown is.

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Sephia said:
Can there even be a Masonic monk?

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No, but I'm sure Dan can make room for one and upset millions more with his attention to detail.

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How can you call it 'The Guide to Dan Brown's The Solomon Key' when The Solomon Key, quite clearly, hasn't been released and, as far as I can tell, there is no hint as to its content.

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Hi Dazzle,

Firstly, it should be pointed out that *I* didn't call it that - as I pointed out, when I self-published the book I called it DaVinci in America. The new title is by the publisher, and as many authors will attest, the publisher decides the title. I accept your point about a predictive book being called a guide, but in this case (see below) I think we are as close to being that as possible.

However, on your point about "no hint to its content". Quite the opposite, in fact Dan Brown left clues on the cover of The Da Vinci Code as explicit hints to the content of his next book, intending people to solve the puzzle via his web challenge (providing direct pointers to topics such as the Kryptos statue).

Add to that his public quotes about the next book, as well as some mining work on his sources for TDVC and likely sources for the new book, and there is more that can be ascertained (for example, see the essay on the Udjat and The Solomon Key at my new website for example, which I think must be pretty close to nailing one particular point). I've run a website on these topics for over 7 years (The Daily Grail), so I feel I have a pretty good insight into DB's likely plot devices and locations, and am no Johnny-come-lately.

As I say in my book, Dan Brown's novels revolve around the intrigue generated by the puzzles, codes and ciphers he inserts into the plotline. I've written my book in that spirit, and turned it into a decoding of the 'ciphers' left by Brown regarding The Solomon Key. I acknowledge when I think I'm spot on, and when I'm speculating, but it's all done in good fun as a treasure hunt of sorts.

Peace and Respect,
Greg

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= News on The Solomon Key?
= The Cryptex - Dan Brown central

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AAnnAArchy said:
Hmmm, how much should we start charging for these promotional threads? Two, maybe three, promos in only a couple of days. Must be the holiday shopping season.

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Hi AAnnAArchy,

Well, no - as I pointed out, I just launched my website...so I don't really appreciate the implication that I'm searching for Xmas shoppers with the timing (as that was not in my mind at all).

However, I am more than happy for you to delete the thread if you wish - I completely understand any reservations about hosting 'commercially-oriented' blurbs, which can end up seeming like spam. At the very least though, in my defense:

* I am being forthright about what I am offering, rather than slipping 'sneaky' links in to my website. Yes, I have a book to sell - but I'm also offering a few thousand words of free content via the sample chapter, related essays, and news updates...which I think many CoDB readers would be interested in. So I'm not just linking to a shopfront and not offering anything back to the community.

* I have been a member of this board for almost 12 months, and have contributed at various times with (hopefully!) helpful information. I didn't just sign up and spam the board.

* I emailed via the 'Contact Us' form on the site way back in January when I first joined, asking if it was appropriate to discuss my book - I didn't receive any reply (and haven't received any comment about my posting of sample chapter etc).

As I said though, please delete the thread if you feel it contravenes the rules of the board, and accept my unreserved apology. Alternatively, as a way of dealing with the issue while leaving the information available for interested readers, perhaps do as other discussion boards do and create a topic of 'Website Links and Promotions' where people can post links to websites, books etc? This would allow people to make a decision on whether they want to view possible commercially-oriented posts, which do have some redeeming factors (e.g. sample chapters).

Peace and Respect,
Greg

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= News on The Solomon Key?
= The Cryptex - Dan Brown central

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AAnnAArchy said:
Hmmm, how much should we start charging for these promotional threads? Two, maybe three, promos in only a couple of days. Must be the holiday shopping season.

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Heh...well, while you're at it, you might consider banning links in signatures as well. While they're not always links to commercial endeavours, they're still a form of advertising designed to drive traffic to other sites. Since this forum is well-linked in major search engines, the presence of a lot of offsite links from here can improve the search engine rankings of those sites as well, giving them more visibility. Belfegor is hardly the only one benefitting from such things--even long-time posters like Dazzle do it (which may explain why he posts as often as he does, even if it's just a bunch of one-liners concerning Dan Brown's incompetence ).

If it improves the search-engine visibility of a website (e.g. Dazzle's "Talk-History" site), thereby drawing more visitors there, then the value of any advertising/sponsorship contracts (e.g. Google ad words, etc.) the poster has goes up. In effect, then, signature links are promotional as well, even if they're a bit more subtle

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Arras said:
while you're at it, you might consider banning links in signatures as well.

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And profiles.

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