Angry Robot has books by two debut authors following its "Open Door Month", in which un-agented authors could submit their works directly to the publisher.
Editor Lee Harris negotiated both deals, each for world rights and a minimum of two books, with the authors. Harris signed the first deal with Cassandra Rose Clarke for her books, The Mad Scientist's Daughter and The Assassin's Curse.
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AA Publishing has bought a comedy title which rewrites the Highway Code penned by the co-founder of the humour magazine the Chap.
Editorial director Helen Brocklehurst bought world English language rights from Susan Smith at MBA Literary Agents to the title, The Gentleman's Guide to Motoring by Vic Darkwood. The AA plans to publish in time for Father's Day in June 2012.
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Piccadilly Press has bought a time-travelling young adult romance story, which will be a lead title for autumn 2012.
Managing director Brenda Gardner bought world rights to two books in the Timedance series from Bob Markel. The first book, Neptune's Tears by Susan Waggoner, will be published in September 2012. Set in the future, it is about an "empath" and the patient she falls in love with, who is a time traveller. Publication details for the second book have yet to be confirmed.
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Bloomsbury has acquired two books by the historian Frederick Taylor, author of Dresden, The Berlin Wall and Exorcising Hitler.
Senior commissioning editor Bill Swainson and Bloomsbury Press publisher and editorial director Peter Ginna bought world English language rights from Jane Turnbull in the two books, The Downfall of Money and Coventry.
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The History Press is to publish a title which claims to offer new insights into the historical phenomenon of Jack the Ripper and the creation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The Dracula Secrets: Jack the Ripper and the Darkest Sources of Bram Stoker by historian Neil Storey has been acquired by commissioning editor Jay Slater and will be published in May, on the 125th anniversary of the original Dracula publication.
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Capstone has sealed a three-book deal with personal development author Robert Kelsey, author of What's Stopping You? Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can.
Executive commissioning editor Holly Bennion bought world rights in a deal struck through Isabel Atherton at Creative Authors Ltd.
Kelsey, a former City banker turned PR man, will turn to different, undisclosed personal development areas for the new books, with the first due out in early 2013.
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Rider Books has acquired a "major new title" giving access to ideas behind mindfulness and cognitive therapy, Mind Whispering by Tara Bennett-Goleman.
Publishing director Judith Kendra bough UK and Commonwealth rights from HarperOne, with plans to publish in trade paperback in February 2013.
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Little, Brown has acquired a debut novel by Times critic, columnist and features writer Kevin Maher, with publishing director Clare Smith snapping up her first title for the imprint in a hotly-contested four-way auction.
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Newly relaunched Virgin Books imprint W H Allen has acquired a "hard-hitting" memoir by former Islamist Maajid Nawaz.
Publishing director Ed Faulkner bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Neil Blair and Zoe King at the Blair Partnership, with the title, Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening, to be published as a trade paperback original in summer 2012, priced £12.99.
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Solaris Books has acquired the sequel to Helix by sci fi author Eric Brown.
Editor-in-chief Jon Oliver acquired UK and US rights in Helix Wars in a deal with agent John Jarrold. The title will be delivered in spring 2012 with publication lined up for April next year.
Originally published in 2007, Helix revealed the worlds of a vast spiral construct, wound around a single sun with each twist composed of over 10,000 worlds, built by an ancient alien race known as the Builders.
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Ebury Press has signed Anne Berry’s third novel The Adoption, a multi-generational story about adoption and identity, with the author moving from HarperCollins imprint Blue Door.
Ebury editorial director for fiction Gillian Green bought British Commonwealth rights from agent Judith Murdoch for an undisclosed sum. Ebury will publish in original trade paperback in June 2012, with the paperback to follow in 2013.
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Headline has acquired two novels by Mark Mills, previously published by HarperCollins, and author of bestselling title The Savage Garden.
Publishing director for fiction Imogen Taylor bought world rights excluding North America in the two novels, as yet untitled, through Stephanie Cabot at The Gernert Company.
The first book, which will be a contemporary novel set around an Oxfordshire estate, will be published in 2013. The second will have "more of a period setting", with both containing elementsof "surprise [and] intrigue".
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Octopus will publish the next tie-in title to ITV1 show "The Biggest Loser" next year, the third in the brand to be released by the Hachette publisher.
Publishing director Stephanie Jackson made the deal for UK and Irish rights with Shine commercial manager Maya Maraj for The Biggest Loser Cookbook, with plans to publish alongside the next series in January 2012.
The Biggest Loser Cookbook will include more than 100 recipes for calorie-counted meals, with a 14-day menu plan as well as shopping lists.
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Picador has bought a debut novel by Royal Holloway creative writing MA graduate Emma Chapman, with editorial director Francesca Main making her first acquisition for the imprint.
Main bought UK and Commonwealth rights, including Australia and New Zealand, to How to Be a Good Wife from Jamie Coleman at Toby Eady Associates, with plans to publish in spring 2013.
The book focuses on long-married Marta and Hector, as Marta begins to see visions of a blonde girl, and she tries to remember life before Hector.
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Hodder has acquired Meredith by John Kercher, the father of Meredith Kercher, the murdered English student.
Editorial director Fenella Bates bought world English rights from Ben Mason at Fox Mason. The book will be published in hardback in April 2012.
Billed as a “celebration of Meredith’s life”, the title is also a father’s story of losing his daughter, and will be the first account of the lives of the Kercher family since her murder four years ago.
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Popular science writer Simon Singh has accepted a six-figure world English language rights pre-empt made at Frankfurt for his next book, The Mathematics of The Simpsons.
The deal, Singh's first since winning the legal case that kept him off writing for three years, was done with Bloomsbury, via by Patrick Walsh of Conville and Walsh. Richard Atkinson will be his UK publisher, joined by George Gibson at Bloomsbury New York and Kathleen
Farrar at Bloomsbury Australia.
Anova Books imprint Conway has acquired the official tie-in to forthcoming BBC series "Dig WWII" fronted by historian Dan Snow.
Publisher John Lee acquired world rights through agent Luigi Bonomi on behalf of documentary makers 360 Production.
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The third day of Frankfurt has seen a wealth of new deals, including "frenzied" bidding for Egmont's BZRK series, and a second Led Zeppelin title.
Michael Grant’s new young adult thriller series BZRK has hit the half a million pound mark in foreign rights sales, selling into five territories: France, Germany, Holland, Norway and the US.
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Jeremy Robson has secured world rights to a book that features the previously unpublished notebooks of Bram Stoker as one of Robson's launch titles for his new imprint at Biteback.
Robson bought the rights directly from Stoker's great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker, and Dracula scholar Dr Elizabeth Miller. The Lost Journals of Bram Stoker is provisionally scheduled for publication by the Robson Press next spring.
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Virgin Books will be rocking out with a new biography of Led Zeppelin lead guitarist Jimmy Page after acquiring the title in a joint deal with Crown Publishers in the US.
Publishing director Ed Faulkner bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Linda Kaplan at Crown Publishers in New York to Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page.
Written by editor-in-chief of Guitar World magazine, Brad Tolinski, its draws on more than 50 hours of conversation with Page.
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Gollancz has won out in a "hard-fought" auction, with three publishers in the final round, acquiring world rights to three books in a new science-fiction series for a six-figure sum.
Deputy publishing director Simon Spanton snapped up the titles by Peter Higgins from Ian Drury at Sheil Land, with the first, The Wolfhound Century, lined up for publication in early 2013.
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Tif Leohnis has made her first acquisition since joining Canongate, pre-empting UK and Commonwealth rights to two books by PEN/Hemingway award-winner Ben Fountain.
Loehnis bought a novel and a short story collection from Felicity Blunt of Curtis Brown on behalf of ICM’s Heather Schroder. Canongate will publish the novel, Bill Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, in June 2012, with Brief Encounters with Che Guevara set to follow in 2013.
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"Grange Hill" writer Phil Redmond is to pen a memoir and novel for Random House imprint Cornerstone.
M.d. Susan Sandon acquired world rights in the two books directly with Redmond, who is best known for creating three of Britain's longest-running drama programmes: "Grange Hill", "Brookside" and "Hollyoaks".
The as-yet-untitled memoir will be published in November 2012 to tie in with the 30th anniversaries of both "Brookside" and Channel 4, with an Arrow paperback to be released in 2013.
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HarperCollins has bought rights to a memoir by the father of late soul singer Amy Winehouse.
Nick Canham, editorial director for Harper Non-Fiction, bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse, from Maggie Hanbury at the Hanbury Agency.
Lisa Sharkey, senior vice-president and director for creative development at HarperCollins US bought North American rights from Robin Straus at the Robin Straus Agency in conjunction with Maggie Hanbury. The book will be published worldwide in summer 2012.
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A high-concept thriller is currently the subject of a five-way UK publisher auction, with North American rights already sold to Mulholland Books by Oliver Munson of Blake Friedmann.
Editor John Schoenfelder acquired The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City (Angry Robot) and winner of this year's Arthur C Clarke award, and one other novel in the deal. The Shining Girls will be published in spring 2013, with Munson describing it as "a high concept thriller about a time travelling serial killer".
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