The release of the second installment of the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flamewill be marked with late store openings and events at Waterstones branches across the UK.
Waterstones stores in London Trafalgar Square, Leeds, Durham, Kingston, Canterbury, London Piccadilly, Birmingham, Crawley, Manchester Arndale and the Trafford Center will host events on the eve of publication today (6th November), with a key event in Liverpool. It will include interactive displays, video, a photobooth and an embedded social filter for fans to enjoy.
Shop activities range from quizzes to egg painting to origami dragon making, some featuring themed drinks and snacks. Some stores will be opening earlier on the release date itself (7th November), in anticipation of the number of fans who want to get their hands on a copy as soon as possible.
Larissa Coates, head of events at Waterstones, said: “It’s always a pleasure to welcome fans to a highly anticipated book launch. The shared excitement and anticipation make these events very special and there is currently no book that is more eagerly awaited Iron Flamea sequel to the Waterstones Book of the Year-shortlist The Fourth Division. We are very excited to invite fans to various locations across the UK to celebrate the launch Iron Flame. The events will be exciting and run from bookshop lock-ups until midnight and early morning openings, allowing fans to be the first to get a copy.”
Iron Flame received the largest number of pre-orders Waterstones.com has ever taken for a title in a single day. The launch of the book was supported by a “huge” PR and marketing campaign, including a sales area for bookshops with dragons, quadrants and the logo from the cover – posters, bunting, windows, mini standees, bookmarks, bookseller cables and T-shirts – and has worked with independent shops, including a midnight launch at Padstow Bookseller and a publication day celebration at Imaginarium Books.
The launch includes a social media campaign with “comprehensive” ad campaigns for Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, as well as a mix of sponsored TikTok influencer content and organic content across all channels. Currently embarking on a massive US tour, Yarros will appear at Fane’s online fan event for UK students, hosted by fiction writer Sabaa Tahir, on 9 November. There will also be a Waterstones online event on 28 November to mark the publication of Waterstones’ special holiday edition The Fourth Division including two never-before-seen chapters
Zoe Bohm, chief publisher of Little, Brown’s Piatkus, Constable & Robinson publishing division, said: “It is with great pleasure to celebrate the publication of Iron Flame with this dragon-sized launch in all Waterstones stores – and it’s great to do so just six months from the publication of The Fourth Division, which was the number one bestseller in all our locations and was recently shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year. We are very grateful to the Waterstones team for their support of the series and the passion and creativity they invest in the launch events. We have already seen their special edition of Iron Flame broke Waterstones pre-order records and I’m sure this is just the start of Rebecca Yarros’ amazing Empyrean series.”
Yarros sold just under 116,000 books via Nielsen BookScan TCM for £1.6m, 95% of which were produced The Fourth Division as published in May.
