Atlantic unveils 'landmark' campaign for Walsh’s debut, Kala

July marks the publication of Kala by Colin Walsh, a "landmark" debut from Atlantic Books, backed by Atlantic Fiction’s biggest marketing and publicity campaign since Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer.

Since acquiring the novel at a five-way auction in early 2022, the company has allocated it the biggest team they have had behind a single book and made it the first in-house super lead. This started with the largest print run of bound proofs in Atlantic’s history, including 150 early limited-edition proofs, alongside signed and personalised proofs for across the trade.

These have been put to use with a pre-publication book tour around indie booksellers, as well as a takeover of the Atlantic stand atthe London Book Fair. Atlantic also partnered with The Bookseller and The Stage on the first ever publisher-sponsored Book Club.

On publication in the UK, the book will have a large out-of-home campaign stretching across the summer to complement book-club partnerships with podcasts, bookshops and press. Atlantic will make reading group questions and videos from Walsh available for participating book clubs.

Working with bookshops across the trade, there will also be eco-friendly point-of-sale packs available, focusing on the Polaroid motif from the cover. The consumer marketing will be extended in Ireland with a radio campaign and further point-of-sale material.

A significant publicity campaign is under way with multiple reviews and interviews confirmed across a wide selection of newspapers, magazines and online outlets both in the UK and Walsh’s native Ireland, where Kala is set. Walsh is also undertaking a seven-city tour of the UK and Ireland at publication, appearing at bookshops in London, Manchester, the Wirral, Glasgow, Belfast, Galway and Dublin during July.

James Roxburgh, publishing director for Atlantic Fiction, commented: "I think when staff at an indie turn together as one to publish a book then it is an awesome, fearsome thing to behold. There’s not a person at their desk here who hasn’t read Kala, and not a person at their desk who hasn’t contributed to the ingenuity and class with which we’ve been publishing it.

"Our sales director has spent the past 12 months manifesting this to be the debut of the summer. I think given the way this is setting up, the cosmos might just be responding to him."