Publication of the testaments by margaret atwood

Agency: VINTAGE, Penguin Random House

"The publication of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments was 34 years in the making and we wanted to make it the most highly anticipated book launch of 2019 - and to elevate Atwood from author to sage, voice of our times and icon.

Working with key retail, media, event and charitable partners, we planned a multi-phased, multi-channel campaign that built anticipation to a fever pitch by publication and made it the #1 bestselling hardback fiction of 2019. We sold a record-breaking 103,000 hardbacks in the UK alone in the first week of sales.

We navigated many challenges by strategically leveraging the secrecy around the storyline and using Atwood's limited availability to our advantage, and were especially pleased that 'the single most exciting publishing event of the year' [The Bookseller] culminated in a historic joint Booker Prize win in October 2019, a fitting accolade to this era-defining publication."