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Andersen Press is to hold a "stellar" publicity and marketing campaign to celebrate the launch of its teen title on losing your virginity.
Losing It is a collection of short stories by teen writers about having sex for the first time. Contributors include Melvin Burgess, Keith Gray, Patrick Ness, Sophie McKenzie, Bali Rai, Jenny Valentine and Mary Hooper. The title will be published as a £5.99 paperback on 8th July.
Fiction editorial director Charlie Sheppard said: "We felt the time was right for books to create a thinking space for teens. Somewhere they could turn to figure out what virginity means to them with the help of writers they respect and trust.
"And we felt the best medium for this was the short story—so often overlooked by publishers but so loved by teenagers who have other distractions in their lives."
The publisher will be holding a launch event at the Gallery in Foyles, Charing Cross Road on 22nd July and will be doing a second launch in the north-west in conjunction with Newcastle University, further details of this event are to be confirmed.
A couple of the authors will be going to Edinburgh Festival, and Andersen is looking to do more panel events at the Lancashire Book Festival and the USC's 'We Read' Festival.
The Scottish Book Trust has made the collection 'Book of the Month' and there is also due to be coverage in children's book magazine BooksforKeeps, the Independent and the Times.
Sheppard added: "With such a stellar line-up we're giving this book lots of focus in the hope that it will reach all those teenagers who need it. And we also hope that the format and content will appeal to teachers, librarians and parents trying to find a way to approach the subject with young people."
Andersen is also putting together two videos. One will have most of the authors speaking for three minutes about their contribution to the collection. The second will be a trailer for the book. Both will be used on the publisher's website, Facebook, Twitter, author sites, YouTube and a number of review sites and will be available as of mid-July.
Finally, Andersen has created a blog to encourage people to write about their own experiences or just funny stories at http://losingitstories.com/.