Emblem Divide – Free serialised book for charity

This is a huge thank you to all of you out there; those who have commented, those who have spent hours glued to a luminescent screen, those who have donated money to charity and those who have given me countless feedback, I thank each and every one of you for your contributions to Emblem Divide. It’s been a long, tiring, but amazing journey and I’m so glad to have shared it with each and every on of you. Please, please, please let me know what you thought of the book. If you’re not a comment person, email. If email’s not your thing, then IM/DM me. If you have any questions, ask. I’d love to hear from you. I would love it if everyone who has finished the book, left a comment on the Epilogue, kinda like a guest book. If you feel like it, it would be great to have a review, and I hope to put up a questionnaire soon too.

Though Emblem Divide is over, please watch the commentaries, you may find a nice surprise in there There will be two bonus chapters later, which may give a further insight into the world of Emblem and even a sneak peak inside the G-TEP HQ. I’m hoping to record two of the songs mentioned in ED, Colour Me Stupid and You Ain’t Seen Me Till I’m Dead and upload them to the site. There’s also the possibility of some exclusive artwork, for which I need to find someone to paint me some extraodinary scenery. There’s also the idea of producing an audio book, and I need to post later about how printed copies will work.

In closing, keep spreading the word. You now know the ending and as so, are much better placed to promote the book to others. The best decision we made in the team was to share Emblem Divide with the community. Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.

So tomorrow’s the final release day. Wanna see how it’s going to pan out? (All times in GMT)

• 17:30 – Release Chapter 50
• 18:30 – Release Epilogue
• 19:00 – Thank you post
• 19:30 – Release Video Commentary 1
• 19:45 – Release Video Commentary 2
• 20:00 – Release Video Commentary 3
• 20:15 – Release Video Commentary 4
• 21:00 – Bonus Chapter 1
• 22:00 – Bonus Chapter 2

Excited? I sure am

So, the end is most definitely in sight. Next Thursday, the journey that you have all undertaken with me will finally be over. I’m absolutely overjoyed at the feedback I have received from people so far and I really do hope that you are as satisfied by reading the ending, as I was writing it.

A few things I wanted to mention. Firstly, the Epilogue will be released an hour after Chapter 50. So contrary to the original intention, the final date will be the 11th.

Secondly, I am recording a Q&A session today, taking questions from readers and also adding comments of my own to make a kind of directors commentary. This will be released on the final day, or very soon after the final release.

Thirdly, there are two bonus chapters, which were originally written as teasers, until I discovered that at least one of them gave away some points that would have ruined some of the tension of the later chapters. Thus I kept them back, but they will both be released fairly soon after the end of the book, introducing some new characters and adding an extra dimension to the story.

Lastly, It’s been amazing talking to some of Emblem Divide’s readers. I’ve met new people and also gotten in touch with people that I haven’t spoken to for years. Can I please ask that if you have enjoyed the book, let others know. Obviously it would be cool if you could donate to one of the charities, but if this is something you can’t do, then please just spread the word.

It would also be great if you could write me some kind of review, or even just tell me what you felt worked, and what you felt maybe didn’t. Did you like the serial release style of the book? Was the 2 day gap too much? Would you have preferred a physical book? Do you intend to buy a copy of the physical book when it comes out? These are all questions that would really help me in both finishing up Emblem Divide, and writing any further books.

So in closing, thank you. Thank you to all of you that have commented, and spoken about the book far and wide, you are all awesome and Emblem Divide is yours too now. Enjoy the final few chapters.

Pete

Well, it’s been a roller coaster of a year, we’ve had numerous mentions and publicity and we’re confident that next year is going to be even bigger. For those of you that don’t know, Emblem Divide is 50 Chapters long, plus an epilogue. By my calculations, that means we’ll finish on the 13th of March 2010. We hope to see you all there at the finish line.

So far we’ve had some awesome feedback with many people saying that they love the way the story jumps around. If you’re one of those people then you’re going to love the rest of the book. There are plenty of plot twists and turns to come. It’s crazy to think we’re already 1/5 of the way through.

For those of you that are feeling a little guilty about waiting till the entire book is released; Dont! People all read in different ways. We released serially for two reasons, a) to build a community and a campaign and b) because we thought it would be fun to journey along with the reader. So, please don’t be afraid to post comments, preferably keep spoilers to yourselves, but we welcome all other comments on the blog and the facebook page.

Also, are you aware you don’t have to visit the site every two days, we spent a long time making it so you can get to the book however suits you. On the site you should see links for RSS feeds, and email subscriptions.

Finally, have a very very Happy Christmas from all of us here at the Emblem Divide team.

We look forward to see you all in 2010.

The Emblem Divide Team

Today, Emblem Divide made the wordpress homepage for a short while. This gave us a well needed boost in views as well as hopefully planting the ED seed in peoples minds. The hardest part of this project by far has been the process we are currently trudging through, tweeting, shouting, emailing, begging, bugging and generally annoying anyone or anything that I have known to get the word out there.

I want to say a big big thank you to the wordpress.com team, Darren Kitchen of hak5.org, Jordan, Luke, Katie, Lynsey, Mandy, Og, Wei, John, Jason, Saq, Tay, Ben, Dave, Alex, all you other cool peeps who have been supporting us, Damien the whipcracker, theme guru and general marketting d00d, and of course my wife, for providing some awesome graphics, supporting a weirdo like me and for being the reason the book exists in the first place.

Please please please keep supporting us. Together we can make a difference and drive some much needed funds to some awesome charities. If you can’t afford to give anything at all, give us the gift of word of mouth, tell someone about the project.

Thank you
@emblemdivide

PS If I forgot anyone, please let me know and I’ll add you. It’s been crazy trying to keep track of everyone who has been so kind to us here at Emblem Divide

Well the wait is nearly over, and it’s with great pleasure that we can announce the release date of the book Emblem Divide today as the:

Starting on this date, one chapter will be posted every two days. You will also see three links appearing very shortly for donations to three really worthy causes. We’ve been working hard in the background just finishing up bits and pieces but the wait, for all of us, is almost over. It’s been a huge amount of work getting to the stage we have and I thank Damien and Lisa for all their effort with the site, design, proofing and graphics work.

I also want to thank everyone who was a part of the review panel. Though some of you didn’t manage to finish the book before the release, I am very grateful to each of you for the feedback and help you have shown. Last but not least, the FaceBook ED and twitter followers. Though numbers are few right now, I really do want to say a big thanks to you all for your support.

So stay tuned guys, donate some money, and hopefully, have a very enjoyable read.

Pete

Well, a huge thank you to Damien for all his help and support for emblemdivide.com. We have him to thank for the domain, and the awesome redesign of the thirteen theme. Unfortunately on the wordpress.com site you cannot choose your own themes, but you can fully customise them. We took the opportunity to do so and came up with something that I feel fits perfectly.

I can honestly say that without Damien’s help, emblemdivide.com wouldn’t exist as it does today. We have been collaborating on this for a little while now and credit where credit is due, he has been amazing. Thanks pal, Emblem Divide and myself are in your debt.

After doing a lot of thinking, the future of Emblem Divide has finally been decided. You may or may not have seen posts about me musing over publishing tactics, facebook status updates about how best to distribute. Here is the de facto answer. As far as I know right now, this is what I have decided and I am happy. There are three items I would like to address.

• Publishing – Emblem Divide will be published on a blog, most likely on emblemdivide.wordpress.com. I will upload a chapter once every two days. Seeing as the chapter count is at fifty, it should take one hundred days to reach the end of the book. Why did I decide on this method? Quite simple really. Traditional publishing takes a long time and it’s unlikely I’d be able to do the scheme described below. Perhaps the most overriding factor though, is that the book was written for Lisa. Everything which is in there, is in the there for a reason and I’m not prepared to let people chop and change it, just to sell a few extra copies. I’m in no way under the illusion that I know better than the editors/publishers, but the purpose is not to make the book the best it can be this time round, it’s to publish the works as is.
• Money – Emblem Divide will be FREE, that’s right all 185,000 words of it. I don’t want a penny. After thinking about this and discussing with many close aides who were originally against the idea of my publishing online, most have now changed their mind to back the new plan. What’s different about it? Well, though Emblem Divide is going to be free I am going to place a PayPal donate now button on the site. Where’s the money going you ask? Charity of course! Which charity will be decided over the next couple of days, it may be that it’s split over several.
• Redistribution – I still want to keep some control of my IP, most importantly because I haven’t fully decided on the future of the Emblem Divide universe. I also want to drive as many people to the site, to try and make as much money for charity as I can. To this end I will be placing the PDF files online for people to download to portable readers, and even to print off for their own personal reading, but I will not allow the redistribution of said material, having said this, I realise this could be seen as Anti Save the Planet, if anyone has any ideas on how to solve it Please let me know.

Hopefully in the next day or two I should have one or two of the following; Teaser chapters, reviews. Most of the reviews have been written, I’m just waiting for one more that I really want to include with the batch. It’s been a real pleasure writing and producing the Emblem Divide brand and story for you all, I really hope you enjoy it. Next stop: A Damn Good Read

It’s been a little whilst since the last post and my apologies for that. I have learned a valuable lesson, and that would be to space the posts out a little more. In truth I never expected to be able to write one post per day for any appreciable amount of time, especially on such a narrow field as my book.

However, enough of the apologies because I have some news for you eager beavers.

Logo / Design :
At the moment I am hard at work with a few people looking at designing some logos for the brand “Emblem Divide.” If it was only one book this would be fairly pointless, but it’s hopefully going to have at least one sequel. Plus I feel that if my distribution plan goes ahead, having an instantly recognisable identify will be key to my success.

Proofing :
A very good friend of mine is currently shredding through the script looking for any mistakes and errors. I owe an awful lot to this man and I thank him from the very bottom of my heart for pledging so much time to my project.

Review Team :
Out of the eight people that now have the book, including Lisa, three have finished. Taking into account one only received it this very afternoon, I’m not really holding anything against them. Several are making sterling progress and I expect to be able to post the reviews from those that have finished it in the next day or two.

Publishing Decision :
Having had several discussions with people close to me and explained my reasoning for my decision, I think I have most people on board with the idea of giving the book out over a blog. I will still retain copyright and will add a notice allowing users to download the chapter PDFs and print them for their own use, but distribution will be strictly prohibited. In doing this I hope to gain some buzz in the world of the Internet, and we are currently working on a secret method for distributing the chapters which could turn out to be very unique and interesting.

Sequel :
Yes, I’ve mentioned it several times. A sequel is in the planning stages. I already have most of the scenes and storyline, it’s just a matter of fitting them all together in an entirely incoherent way. Did you read that right? I did say incoherent, what good is a novel about time travel if it doesn’t leave the reader a little confused about where they are?

Thank You :
At this point in time, I wanted to say a big thank you to all those who have actively supported me in my efforts so far. Your guidance and aid is greatly appreciated and will never be forgotten. A little closer to the release I will publish a full list of people that I need to thank but for now, you know who you all are. Please keep plugging the book. I will issue some kind of banner/logos soon that you can use, should you wish to Facebook/Tweet/Blog about Emblem Divide.

Hi all.  This blog is dedicated to information about the release and proofing process of the book Emblem Divide.  I will be sharing information about how the reviewers are feeling about the book, how the proofing process is going and also exactly how I plan to release the book.

There is a sequel planned, and seeing as the sequel isn’t going to be as “private” as the first book, (a post will follow shortly about that) I will be documenting the process as I write, giving little snippets of information.

I hope any one reading this will enjoy it and benefit from the information I present here.  Writing Emblem Divide has been a lot of fun, now it’s time to get it ready to share with everyone.

Pete