unforum

[GuyP]

Aye, loving your work too Zaeil, although I think the title should stay on the front cover. But yes, let's do "something like this." It's so pretty!

[zaeil]

Thanks, everyone! Like I said, this is really just a mock-up. The impression I had was that they just wanted a cover image anyway, not a full book jacket. I'm guessing I ought to email Ellen Moriyama and Violet about specifics if we're going to go with this, huh? Better do that before I get wrapped up in my work this morning...

[cassandra]

I think it's beautiful and I'm glad you liked "Terra Incognita."

[fantasticalan]

[chichiri]

Not really, since the people reading it aren't real, so we can just sit back and giggle at mass head-scratching causing dandruff to flood the streets of perplex city.

I can't wait till season 2 when mind candy start making cards to mock our foolishness in season 1, that should be fun.

no da

[European Chris]

[POTUS]

fantasticalan & Scott both wrote:

[zaeil]

Thanks! No definitive word yet on whether the cover can be a wraparound or not. Ellen has sent the question over to their printer and will get back to me (though her tenative answer is that "it depends on the length of the manuscript"). However, to get a jump on things, I'll be working on a wraparound version and a high-res front cover over the weekend.

Any headway yet on the code you guys want to include, or even if you'd definitely like to include one? I'd like to have at least an idea so I can figure out ways to deal with it.

[GasparLewis]

Well, whatever you do, make sure the message only makes sense to 3P.
After that, it's anywhere and anyway you want it.

request 3P enter info give contact (mail client) (e-mail address title w/o @____.___).

(Ex. : request 3P enter info ready yahoo letmebeO9 = letmebeO9SPLATyahoo.com)

Cryptic to the unknowing, yes?

As for how...

* shift ASCII value up by 333
* join adjacent characters into six-digit strings
* translate in base 14
* take characters, express as playing cards (Joker, A-10, J, Q, K)

And suddenly it all looks like poker hands.

[Sentinel]

I have noticed that there has been no mention for a while, of Reason's idea of a montage. Are you still working on this Reason? Maybe this could be featured on the back of the book, if we are allowed to submit a wraparound cover.

Also maybe the code could be placed here so as not to spoil the masterpiece that is zaeil's front cover

[sledgecallier]

We need to start getting things finalised pretty soon so can we come to some sort of agreement on:

1) The contents of the cover. Is this to be a wraparound or do we need to produce two designs to cover both eventualities?

2) Are we going to create a montage as we will need to collate images for this pretty swiftly?

3) Are we going to add a secret code or message to 3P and if so, what form will this message be in and what will it say. (Are we still offering up Oliver as a mole?)

4) Finally, can we get a definitive decision on the name of the book?

I'm sure there are other things I have not thought of, so if anyone else has anything to add?

Cheers

[Scott]

[GasparLewis]

*EXTREMELY LOUD COUGHING*

[Daffy889]

Yes, the message is the problem. I had an idea for a way to incorporate a coded message into a story (a games themed one at that!), but it all came to a grinding halt when I couldn't think of a suitable message to encode in it.

[zaeil]

Ellen told me that whether or not we'd be able to do a wraparound would depend on the length of the book. As we don't have a final word tally yet, she hasn't given me any more specifics in this regard. And since dimensions of the final piece depend on the size of the book, I'm also kinda in the dark in that regard as well. If y'all still want a montage it could be on the back cover, though all the work it would take to make one would be rendered moot by the fact that most publishers put a blurb about the book back there, so it'd be all covered up!

As for a code, I'm working up a graphical version based off GasparLewis's suggested message, though not his encoding technique, I'm afraid. What I'm doing is taking the basic message, enciphering it with a 36-character Vigenere (to disguise the fact that there are numbers in the message) with a key of "earth" (since that word is already on my cover, and I can discretely mark it to emphasize that it's a key), then changing the Vigenere output to Morse code. After that, it's a simple thing to represent graphically--I'm thinking a "leaves and vines" motif, with leaves representing dots and vines as dashes. Figured that wouldn't look terribly out-of-place on my cover design. Anyway, I haven't had time to draw the thing out as I've been super-busy with a lot of other things, but I'll get on it this evening to show y'all what the heck I'm talking about.