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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Over a fifth of North Yorkshire county council's library staff are set to lose their jobs as part of plans to hand branches over to community groups to run, according to a report in the Yorkshire Post.
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READ International has donated its millionth book to schools in East Africa, with Usborne Publishing m.d. Peter Usborne making the presentation with the Duchess of Cornwall.
Forty-three thousand of the books have been donated to the organisation by Usborne over the past two years, with the charity launching in 2005.
Usborne presented the book, an Usborne Children's Encyclopedia, to Tanzania's First Lady, Salma Kikwete, alongside the Duchess of Cornwall.
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The Fiction Uncovered promotion launched earlier this year has received two more years of funding, enabling it to run through to summer 2013.
The promotion, which supports writers deserving of recognition but yet to receive media attention or a major prize, is being funded by Grants for the Arts, supported by Arts Council England and the National Lottery.
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Amazon.co.uk has chosen Elizabeth Haynes' debut Into the Darkest Corner (Myriad Editions) as its best book of 2011, as part of a top 50 selection made "after thoughtful consideration and lengthy debate", and taking into consideration reader reviews.
Haynes' novel, about the darker side of relationships, and featuring a woman at risk of domestic violence, has been "a huge hit with Amazon.co.uk customers and editors alike", the retailer said.
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French prime minister François Fillon has announced that the reduced VAT rate applying to books would be raised from 5.5% to 7% from 1st January as part of a fresh economic austerity package to help rein in France’s massive public debt.
The new rate, which will not apply to food, energy and products and services for the disabled, is the same as Germany’s reduced VAT and is expected to add €1.8bn to government revenues. France’s full VAT rate remains unchanged at 19.6%.
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The International Publishers Association has called for the immediate release of its Freedom to Publish prizewinner in Istanbul following his incarceration by the Turkish authorities.
Ragip Zarakolu, the current chairman of the Turkish Publishers Association’s Freedom to Publish committee and owner of the publisher Belge was arrested in Istanbul on Friday (28th October) and has been remanded in custody today following a 28-hour-long hearing.
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Agent David Godwin is touting a title on party etiquette by Pippa Middleton, sister of the Duchess of Cornwall, with reports she has had two meetings with publishing executives at HarperCollins as well as other houses.
Godwin told the Sunday Times that he was in discussions with Middleton, but added: "Things aren't at all clear at the moment. I don't think I can say anything at this time."
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Three bookshops were among the top 10 retailers to be recognised in the Parliamentary Small Shops Competition.
Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton won a trophy for coming third in the competition, run by the Independent Retailers Confederation and the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group (APPSG). The Torbay Bookshop in Paignton and Hayling Island Bookshop in Hampshire also featured in the top 10.
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HarperCollins has delayed publication of its autobiography of comedian Johnny Vegas, Becoming Johnny Vegas, due for release this autumn, until this time next year.
The publisher said the decision was taken in order to allow Vegas, whose real name is Michael Pennington, enough time to finish the book.
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Academic Michael Hunter has won the 2011 Samuel Pepys Award for his "fascinating" biography of 17th-century scientist Robert Boyle.
Boyle: Between God and Science (Yale) was awarded the £2,000 prize and a specially commissioned medal at a special dinner held at St Paul's School, at which Pepys was a scholar, last night (25th October).
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HarperCollins UK and Australia have won out in a five-way auction for hotly tipped Frankfurt Book Fair title The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes.
HarperFiction crime and thriller publisher Julia Wisdom, together with Shona Martyn of HarperCollins Australia, bought the title in a two-book deal for UK and Commonwealth rights from Oliver Munson at Blake Friedmann, for what is understood to be a high six-figure sum.
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International co-edition publisher Quarto has increased its revenue and profit in the first nine months of 2011, with "much improved trading in the third quarter".
In its Q3 interim management statement the company, headed by chairman and c.e.o. Laurence Orbach, reported sales up by 5% to $130.7m (£82.8m) for the nine months to 30th September 2011, with profit before tax, amortisation of non-current intangibles and exceptional items up 3% to $24.7m (£15.7m) over the period. Profit before tax had increased by 9%, to $6.0m (£3.8m).
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Anthony Cheetham will unveil his new publishing company, Head of Zeus, in the summer of next year, with a biography of Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie bought from Random House US.
The venture—which Cheetham had planned to launch at Atlantic Books before leaving the publisher four months ago—will see him bring out a further 10 print titles in 2012 on a list of "general books with a slightly upmarket feel", alongside a digital-first popular fiction list.
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Penguin is promising a "whole year of celebration" for Sue Townsend next year to mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of her most famous creation's diary.
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Poet Seamus Heaney is to receive a lifetime achievement award at this year's Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards, with the gongs including an Irish Bookshop of the Year Award for the first time.
Also new this year, RTE Television will broadcast the highlights of the awards on 24th November at 10.45 p.m. The awards themselves take place in Dublin's Royal Dublin Society on 17th November.
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Digital publisher Open Road is launching a new imprint, Iconic E-books, with Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and Alice Walker's The Color Purple to be among its first titles.
The Iconic E-Books titles will be those that have "universal name recognition whether as memoir, popular fiction, literary fiction, or non-fiction".
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Fantasy children’s author Catherine Fisher will be officially named Wales’ first Young People’s Poet Laureate later today (18th October).
The Newport writer will be given the title by Literature Wales, which was established in April this year when the authors' society Academi joined forces with the north Wales writing centre, Tŷ Newydd. The ceremony will take place in Cardiff's Literature Lounge, presented by Welsh singer Charlotte Church.
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HarperCollins is planning to release a Hello Kitty branded version of its Collins Dictionaries as part of a new deal with the global brand.
Richard Haines, brand manager at HarperCollins Children's Books, signed the deal with Libby Grant, brand director at Fluid World, the UK licensing agent for Sanrio, which owns Hello Kitty. The deal includes digital rights.
HarperCollins publishes a range of Hello Kitty sticker, activity, tween fashion and friendship guides. It is also planning a branded educational range, with the Collins dictionaries part of that.
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Camden library campaigners have become the latest group to apply for judicial review over library closures.
The Camden Public Library User Group has instructed solicitors Bindmans to lodge an application for judicial review, according to a report in the Camden New Journal. Bindmans is the law firm which acted for Brent Save Our Six Libraries, which last week lost its judicial review challenge against the library closures.
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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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Ion Trewin, administrator of the Man Booker Prize, has hit back at the new Literature Prize over claims by its advisory board that the Man Booker no longer offers a selection of novels "unsurpassed in their quality and ambition".
In its launch announcement, the board claimed: "For many years this brief was fulfilled by the Booker (latterly the Man Booker) Prize. But as numerous statements by that prize's administrator and this year's judges illustrate, it now prioritises a notion of 'readability' over artistic achievement."
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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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British novelist Adam Foulds is among the 12 winners of the 2011 European Union Prize for Literature, announced today at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Each winner of the prize, which recognises the best new or emerging authors in the EU, receives €5,000 and the opportunity to have their work translated into other languages.
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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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