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Wm Heinemann is producing a special "create your own jacket" edition of the new Douglas Coupland novel Generation A (3rd September), to be published alongside the standard hardback.
The special edition will be a cased signed hardback, minus a flap-jacket, and containing a code which the bookbuyer uses on a website (www.customisedcoupland.com) created by the publisher.
On the site, readers can choose their own colours to use on the template design, and also customise the text, including writing a personal message. This will create a bespoke jacket which will then be printed and sent to them, to wrap around the hardback copy. The special edition will be priced at £26, while the standard one is £16.99.
Publicity director Emma Finnegan said the special edition was available for all retailers and the design website would be live from publication date until the beginning of February 2010, when the trade paperback is released. She said: "Douglas is one of those authors whose fans are real, hard-core fans, and this is something extra for them."
Senior marketing manager Adam Humphrey added: "We really wanted to deliver a promotion in keeping with Douglas’ reputation as a true original."
The title of Generation A refers back to the 1991 début that made Coupland’s name, Generation X. The new book is set in the near future in a world where bees are extinct, that is until five unconnected people spread around the world—in the US, Canada, France, New Zealand and Sri Lanka—are stung.
Publisher Jason Arthur said: "The two novels are not connected in terms of character or setting—this is not a sequel in any real sense of the word. It’s connected in theme and methodology—a young group of media savvy people stuck together, telling each other stories." He added: "If Gen X was a Decameron for the late 20th century, Gen A is a Decameron for the digitised 21st and is international in scope."
Coupland will be visiting the UK for a week of publicity from 28th August, with a schedule set to include interviews in the Guardian (publication 7th September), Sunday Times (13th), Scotland on Sunday, Metro (15th), Big Issue and Time Out, plus BBC Radio 4’s "Front Row" and "Book Club", BBC Radio Scotland’s "Radio Café" and RTÉ Radio 1’s "Arts Club".