Decoding The Lost Symbol

Delays for a reason.....

I know, I know, I promised a daily blog and update on the writing process. Well, I have a good excuse this time. Barnes & Noble the major US bookseller and online retailer have asked me to take over and establish the blog they have going about The Lost Symbol.......seemed like an offer I couldn't refuse really. So, here is what will happen. As soon as I have the direct URL for that blog page(s) I will post it here so that anyone who wants to carry on reading the blog will be able to - over at bn.com

Needless to say, its been another busy and hectic week so far. More books have arrived and I'm starting to make little tunnels through the piles of them now to get to my seat. The Morgan Affair and Aaron Burr are my subjects for this week. All this and I'm writing a major article for New Dawn Magazine (Symbols, Lost and Found) that has to be in soon. All in all, there isn't enough time in a day!

Simon Cox

A Mountain of Books....

There is a veritable mountain of books in my front room at the moment. I've started to get together and collate as much of the background research material that I can guess at for the new book. Luckily someone at Dan Brown's publishers has been releasing clues and hints to the new book at his Facebook and Twitter pages.

So, its stacks of books on the American revolution, Scottish Rite Freemasonry, archaeoastronomy, the founding fathers, dollar bill symbolism and the layout of Washington DC. Whats amazing is that I didn't realise how many of these books I already had in my library. Today has been an exercise in putting post it notes into specific pages and listing areas of potential interest. My lounge looks like a bomb site!

Talked with the lovely Olivia and Robert Temple on the telephone last night. Robert is finishing off his new book, Egyptian Dawn, due for publication next year - it sounds like an amazing project that will ruffle many a feather in the Egyptological establishment. I will have an exclusive video interview with Robert and Olivia up on the main site very soon. The Sphinx Mystery remains my book of the year so far.

OK. Off for coffee (lots), more post its (lots) and background reading (enormous amounts!). See you tomorrow.

Simon Cox

Ok, so things change....

Things are really heating up now. Dan Brown's publishers have revealed the cover artwork for the UK and the US versions of his book. And so have I. Someone is even Twittering on behalf of Brown, leaving vital clues to the content of The Lost Symbol at a rate of around 3 a day. Some of them may well be red herrings, or at least dead ends, but it would seem that most of them point to content that we suspected was going to be in the book - way back when it was called The Solomon Key - seemingly in a different life now, its that far back in time. On a personal note, I signed my present book deal for what has become Decoding The Lost Symbol, quite a few years ago now - back then it was called Unlocking The Solomon key and the cover you see below in a previous blog was intended for this book.

So, today I have posted the new covers for my books on my Facebook page (I even Twittered about it - though I am yet to quite 'get' Twitter). Here I post the artwork too. I like them. Different but similar enough and nicely demarcating two distinct markets for me. Mark Foster of Artifice Design (and a business partner of mine in Henu Productions) has brilliantly executed the UK cover, with the design team at Simon & Schuster having produced the US version. The first one below is the UK and the second the US version.

This is the first of what I intend to be an almost daily series of blogs here. I'll keep you all up to date on the writing and research process for Decoding as I go along. I head back to LA on July 30th for three more weeks of filming and editing the SCi web series - then its back to good old blighty for a real heads down effort of writing, reading and lots of coffee.

So it begins.......

 

The process begins...

So, we're off. The process of writing a book about a book that isn't even published yet is afoot. Ok, so how does that work I hear you cry. Well. With great difficulty, some guesswork and hopefully a lot of luck!

We know that Mr Brown left certain clues about the new Robert Langdon adventure lying around. Some of them on his website, some on the US cover of The Da Vinci Code itself. It all adds up to an intriguing puzzle of course, and one that Brown himself is happy to keep shrouded in secrecy. The previous title of the project, The Solomon Key (or The Solo Monkey as some of us used to call it), was also a clue of sorts, leading us in some interesting and exciting directions. 

Personally I don't think that much has changed, apart from the title and the story-line! However, thats not as stupid as it sounds. For my project, all I need to know is what factual elements and sources he has used. What Langdon does or doesn't do is neither here nor there to me, how many beautiful women he flirts with, what 'symbology' he uses count for nothing in my world. My remit is to write an A to Z style expose of the facts behind the fiction, of what is sure to be a huge book for DB once again. I'll certainly be interested in where he draws up the battle lines between church and science again (if indeed he does this time) and what aspect of religious mystery he chooses this time (again, if indeed he does). 

With all that said, I am now deeply ensconced in research for the book. I have my hunches about the factual elements that will be used. The secret societies, the places and the people that will form the brooding backdrop to what will be a tale of clues and codes - and a lost symbol. My contract with my publishers (over 20 of them for the new book) states that I have two weeks from the publication of DBs book, until my manuscript must be delivered - two weeks, 85,000 words, a finished cover, a color plate section, in-line black and white diagrams and maps, an index, a bibliography and an introduction. No sleep for me then between September 15th and 30th! I'll be locked in my eery at my Bedford, UK house - so if anyone is nearby at that time, bring the coffee and cakes!

Keep checking back, I'll keep you all up to date on the progress as I go along. What a way to make a living!

Simon Cox

Symbols Lost And Found....

Ok, so I lied when I said I wouldn't post anything until the new website on the 5th May. But I couldn't resist. You see today is a day I've been quietly waiting for, for many a long year. Today the new Dan Brown book was announced, with its publication to be on September 15th of this year worldwide. No Solomon Key as the title, its to be called The Lost Symbol. A title both plain and enigmatic and one designed to give nothing away about the content and direction of the plot. 

So, let the games begin. Gird your loins and prepare for a juggernaut to take off down the runway. For The Da Vinci Code there were over 120 books 'about' his book - for the next one there are bound to be many more than that. I myself am part of this industry, indeed it could be argued that I started it (as far as the Dan Brown books are concerned) with my Cracking The Da Vinci Code, being the first one out of the blocks several years ago. I followed that up with Illuminating Angels & Demonsand then The Dan Brown Companion. It means a title change for my book too - so its hello to Decoding The Lost Symbolby Simon Cox and not Unlocking The Solomon Key. To be honest, I never quite understood how you could actually unlock a key, but that argument has now been made mute.

I held off from writing a book about the new one in advance, despite several offers, and now I feel much better about that decision. Those that have written books with Solomon Key in the title now look rather like chumps - not to mention the fact that the content may well have substantially changed in the last few years. Why would there have been such a delay otherwise? I understand that this book has had several major rewrites in the past few years, with Hollywood blockbusters and court cases taking their toll on Brown's plot lines and making him wary of using sources he had already researched. 

The publishing and book selling business are overjoyed. Indeed, the announcement at the London Book Fair today was met with joy unconfined, on a scale not seen in the business in many years. Booksellers are already predicting it as the best seller of the year and emails have already started to appear from the likes of Barnes & Noble advertising substantial discounts for pre-orders made today. This promises to be a phenomena in the image of The Da Vinci Code before it. 

Personally it signals the start of a program of events that I have been planning for the past five years. I signed my deal to write a book about Brown's next book a number of years ago, but have planned for this event well in advance. Its going to be a fun ride. Rumour and counter rumour are sure to jostle with each other on the internet and in the newspapers about the plot line - I have already been asked this same question by a major media outlet - but I am keeping quiet on this - and even if I did know the whole plot, I would keep my lips sealed. Secrets are meant to be kept.

Simon Cox