Horror author Stephen King invites you to play hide-and-seek as part of a groundbreaking marketing scheme
Stephen King © Dick Dickinson
These days marketing is an important part of any writer’s job, and who better to show us how it’s done than horror writing legend Stephen King?
In one of the most unique marketing initiatives ever launched on behalf of a writer, Stephen King’s UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton invites us to take part in the world’s biggest ever game of literary hide and seek.
Rather than presenting Stephen’s latest novel in traditional form (that is, in one solid chunk of text and paper) the epic 336,114-word novel Under the Dome, has been broken into more than 5,000 snippets and scattered across hundreds of Stephen King fansites, plus horror, thriller and lifestyle websites and locations throughout the UK. Now it’s up to you to use the clues given on www.stephenking.co.uk to find the extracts and piece the book back together and deliver the book back to the website before its general release on 10th November.
Under the Dome features more than 100 characters trapped within a town in Maine, USA, which has suddenly been sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier. An intriguing concept, especially when the marketing campaign is embodying almost the opposite idea as we wait to see what happens to a novel when it is disseminated throughout the world with no barriers at all.
Speaking of the book, Stephen King comments: “I tried this once before when I was a lot younger, but the project was just too big for me. But it was a terrific idea and it never entirely left my mind . . . and every now and then it would say write me, and eventually I did. I sure hope people like it.”
Laurence Festal, Head of Consumer Marketing at Hodder & Stoughton, says: “This is a huge launch and Stephen King fans are already primed to hear about and buy the book. We wanted to mark this launch as something special, both for those who are already anticipating it and those that don’t have Under the Dome on their radar yet.”
As pieces of the Stephen King are found they’ll be posted on www.stephenking.co.uk, enabling fans to move them around and link them together to form bigger sections of the book. Also on the site are clues to help you find more of the text and a forum for fans to discuss the snippets they’ve found.
All those playing the game to uncover this hidden masterpiece will be entered into a draw to win a weekend in a London hotel to read a limited edition copy of the book the weekend before its general release. The closing date of the draw is 6th November.
A creative writing competition also gives aspiring novelists the chance to have a 2,000-word piece of work judged by King himself.
The final pieces of the book will be released on Friday November 6th 2009 at a special literary stunt in London, giving players a last-minute chance to piece together more snippets.
For further information visit www.stephenking.co.uk
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