Headline wins Atlanta’s ‘rallying' exploration of beauty industry in six-publisher auction

Headline has triumphed in a six-way auction for Pixel Flesh by writer and brand consultant Ellen Atlanta.

Katie Packer, senior commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to the “thought-provoking and rallying exploration of the modern beauty industry, social media and the women it harms” from Max Edwards at Aevitas Creative Management UK. It will be released in spring 2024.

The publisher said: “In Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta reassesses our relationship with beauty, and through emotional personal narrative and hard-hitting analysis, she forces us to completely rethink the world we’ve grown accustomed to. From ’Love Island’ to lip filler, mixedfishing to the male gaze, Ellen holds digital beauty culture to account and highlights the unbelievable impact it has on women’s lives. Pixel Flesh represents a refusal to brush the issues facing young women under the carpet."

Atlanta is a writer and brand consultant specialising in Generation Z and millennial culture who has worked in the beauty industry for almost a decade, starting out at WAH Nails before becoming a founding editor of Dazed Beauty and consultant for the likes of BeautyCon, Estée Lauder and Boots.

She said: “I don’t think anything can prepare you for the moment your childhood dream comes true and you find out you’re going to be an author, but this entire process has been a series of pinch-me moments and happy tears. The conversations I had with Katie and the rest of the team at Headline were the exact conversations I wanted Pixel Flesh to spark; rife with complexity, confessions and compassion. I knew then that Pixel Flesh had found its people.”

Packer added: “This is the book I have been looking for ever since I started in this industry. Pixel Flesh is powerful, considered and deeply touching. It’s a book you will want to give every woman in your life to show them that the way we’ve been going doesn’t have to be the only way. Ellen is an astoundingly talented writer – razor-sharp with her observations and compellingly honest with her personal stories – and I know she will set the world alight with this debut.”