Lee Francis (MSc Marketing, 2017) has recently co-written a high concept thriller novel which came out on 26th July 2018.

He completed his MSc in Marketing with Distinction in 2017. Marketing is of critical importance to any business venture today, and his Masters gave him the tools to tackle a daunting creative venture. Overall he found it a very worthwhile course and his favourite modules were: Integrated Marketing Campaign, Branding and Digital Marketing. These modules were heavily drawn upon when he set about to market... himself! He writes:

' Playing With Death is a fast paced crime thriller that tackles head on the grittier aspects of our everyday reliance on technology. It also offers a darker look at VR, which was made recently very popular by Ready Player One. In our story, VR is used as a metaphor to explore broader concerns that FBI Special Agent Rose Blake has to tackle. Our access to digital words is now only a tap away, but what does that do to us as human beings? What happens to our lives in the real world if we spend so much time in artificial ones? Will we get critically dependent on these things, to the exclusion of everything else? And, how will our interactions with AI develop? For better, or worse?

Playing With Death is co written with Sunday Times best selling author Simon Scarrow and inevitably there were marketing ideas already in place, but I made valuable contributions. I created the tagline 'Like. Share. Kill' for the cover, I also directed and produced a free prequel game 'Catch a Killer' available on iOS and Android that allows you to 'message' a serial killer! We wanted to offer an immersive experience for the reader, with more to explore than just the book. I even got a real VR 'Skin' suit made for me to wear in book stores whilst signing copies, which has certainly had some amusing reactions! There's also a VR competition from Tesco's if you buy a copy from their stores. All of these strategies are designed to help elevate our edgy thriller novel from fierce competition in a saturated genre.'

You can contact Lee via Twitter @_LeeFrancis for further information