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Viper hands out sudoku puzzles and free paperbacks for Hallett's Twyford Code campaign
Staff at Viper will be handing out free copies of Janice Hallett’s latest crime novel The Twyford Code, as part of a nationwide campaign celebrating its release in paperback.
On its 21st July publication day, the Profile crime imprint’s publicity team will visit Twyford rail station in Reading and hand out copies with bespoke sudoku puzzles.
The campaign for Hallett’s book is being led by head of marketing Flora Willis, and will include four weeks of adverts placed at train stations and digital ads at airports, while point of service materials will be distributed to 75 bookshops.
A simultaneous online campaign will feature paid social ads, activity led by bloggers, competitions and digital adverts on news and puzzle sites. The book will also be displayed in a banner ad for Theakston Old Peculier Crime Festival’s newsletter.
An illustrator has also been commissioned to design a book-within-a-book, referencing the novel’s storyline. Enid Blyton-style 1940s children’s book Six on Goldtop Hill will be created and showcased in the children’s sections of participating bookshops.
The book will also have a presence at Durham and Noirwich literary festivals, and events will be hosted at branches of Waterstones in Nottingham, Chiswick and Yeovil.
Hallett has sold 174,377 print books for £1.4m in total through Nielsen BookScan in the UK, with The Appeal’s paperback the bulk of her sales, on 142,246 copies sold. It was the second-bestselling crime fiction debut of 2021 after Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club (Viking), excluding lockdown weeks, and picked up the CWA’s John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger award for the best debut crime novel last month. The Twyford Code has sold 26,423 copies in hardback so far, making it the 11th-bestselling hardback fiction title of the year to date and the fourth-bestselling crime hardback.
"Janice is such a star, and the undisputed queen of cosy crime," said British Book Award-winning publicity manager Drew Jerrison. "It’s been a thrill watching her books reach so many excited readers, and we’re aiming to make The Twyford Code the summer bestseller, building a packed schedule of events and festival appearances up and down the country for Janice to meet her many fans."
