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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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Constable & Robinson is getting into the Dickens bicentennial spirit, publishing a novel re-examining the events of Bleak House.

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HarperCollins has appointed Katrina Troy, currently head of commercial affairs for Vintage and Mainstream Publishing, as commercial director for its fiction division.

Troy will join in January 2012 and report to group commercial director Tom Fussell. She will work with fiction publisher Kate Elton and be involved in acquisitions, budgets and forecasting.

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HarperCollins has hired an executive at Turner Broadcasting System Europe, which owns CNN, as its new chief operating officer.

Laura Meyer replaces Julian Thomas, who left the publisher in July after four years. She joins in mid-January 2012, will report to chief operating officer Keith Mullock and will sit on the HC executive board. Her initial responsibility will be upgrading the publisher's systems to deal with the change towards digital.

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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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The director of the Frankfurt Book Fair has said start-ups will capitalise on the trade, as the organisers revealed exhibitor numbers were down 2.1% on 2010.

In total, 7,384 exhibitors from 106 countries attended last week's fair, with more than 3,200 events attracting 280,194 visitors, which was marginally up on last year (279,325).

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Hot Key Books has hired HarperCollins' head of children's sales as its new sales and marketing director.

Kate Manning will join the publisher on 2nd January 2012 and will be responsible for a fiction list comprising between 30 and 50 titles per year.

Manning has also worked at Simon & Schuster, Pan Macmillan, Random House and Waterstone's.

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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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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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Simon & Schuster has bought UK and Commonwealth rights to two books by commentator and Rugby World Cup winner Will Greenwood.

Simon & Schuster Sport commissioning editor Rhea Halford bought rights from Lisa Norman at Benchmark Sport. The first book will be published in hardback in spring 2012.

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Chatto & Windus has acquired a second book by the author of the bestselling memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal.

Editorial director Clara Farmer bought UK and Commonwealth rights to The White Book: A Journey through Porcelain through Felicity Bryan at Felicity Bryan Associates.

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Sky Arts is moving "The Book Show" to a new primetime slot on Thursdays when it returns for a fifth series next week.

The show, presented by Mariella Frostrup, will be broadcast at 8pm and opens with four episodes from the Cheltenham Literature Festival. The show's producers have a new set and format for the show, which will focus on author interviews and performances.

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Simon & Schuster Children's Books has bought a third novel from Andy Mulligan, whose second novel for the publisher was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2011.

Editorial director Venetia Gosling bought world rights to Ribblestrop Forever! from Jane Turnbull. The Ribblestrop series follows anarchic pupils and teachers at Ribblestrop school. It will be published in early 2013.

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Simon & Schuster has bought a memoir by US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was gravely wounded in a shooting earlier this year which cost the lives of six people.

The book, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, will be co-written with her husband Mark Kelly, a US Navy captain and astronaut. World and audio rights were acquired from  Robert B Barnett by Susan Moldow, executive vice-president and publisher, and Nan Graham, senior vice-president and editor in chief of Scribner.

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Publishers should not be too quick to write off physical products and should encourage competition between a number of digital players to avoid the mistakes the record industry made, the director general of the Entertainment Retailers Association has said.

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Bookmakers William Hill have made Jamie Oliver the hot favourite to be the bestselling Christmas title.

Given the runaway success of last year's 30-Minute Meals, it is no surprise that the bookmaker has given Oliver short odds of 1/2 for Jamie's Great Britain to be the biggest seller.

The next favourite is Guinness World Records 2012 at 11/2. The celebrity with the shortest odds is former Manchester United footballer Paul Scholes, whose My Story sits at 10/1.

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Super Thursday has begun with a welter of press coverage about one of the busiest days in the publishing calendar.

Today, 225 hardbacks hit shops including titles by Jamie Oliver, Alan Partridge, James Corden and Robert Harris.

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The price of Amazon's new tablet device has been singled out as its most eye-catching feature although analysts feel it may not be a direct competitor to the iPad.

Amazon c.e.o. Jeff Bezos unveiled the device yesterday (29th September) along with the surprise introduction of several new models of the Kindle, including a new £89 version for the UK.

The Fire tablet will cost $199 with wi-fi, a seven-inch touch screen and access to Kindle books, music, video and games. The tablet is much less powerful than Apple's iPad.

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Independent booksellers are lining up special events for Haruki Murakami's eagerly awaited 1Q84 (Harvill Secker) with Foyles planning a midnight opening.

The book, Murakami's first since 2007's After Dark, will be published on 18th October, priced £20. It comprises volumes one and two of the story, with volume three published as a separate hardback on 25th October.

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Profits at Canongate for its 2010 financial year fell by 42.7%, which the publisher said reflected the cost of acquiring specialist audio publisher CSA, as well as investing in staff and systems.

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London's independents have joined forces to publish a map of the city's bookshops.

The London Bookshop Map features 87 indies from across the city including ones selling new, antiquarian, specialist and second hand titles. The map is free and is available in bookshops and galleries. It features a text work from the artist David Batchelor. The map will be updated every six months and rereleased with a new text artwork.

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HarperCollins Children's Books has signed a debut trilogy in which ordinary boys and girls are trained to become fairy tale heroes or villains.

HC US Editorial director Phoebe Yeh pre-empted world rights from Jane Startz of Jane Startz Productions to the three books by Soman Chainani. The first book in the trilogy, The School for Good and Evil, will be published in spring 2013.

The book follows two girls, one beloved and one reviled, who are kidnapped by a storyteller who runs the school for good and evil.

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Simon & Schuster has bought a memoir by opera star and "Les Miserables" lead Alfie Boe.

Non-fiction editor Rory Scarfe bought world rights at auction from Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown. The book, Alfie, will be published in autumn 2012.

It will offer an account of Boe's childhood as one of nine children growing up in the north of England, how he was talent spotted while working as a mechanic and how he rose to perform around the world. He currently stars as Jean Valjean in the London run of "Les Miserables".

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Canongate has bought a collection of stories by a US marine and veteran of the Iraq war.

Senior editor Francis Bickmore pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights to the untitled collection by Phil Klay through by Cathryn Summerhayes at WME on behalf of Eric Simonoff. US rights were pre-empted by Scott Moyers and Andrea Walker at Penguin US.

Canongate and Penguin will publish in 2013.

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