The creator of the "Silent Witness" TV drama is to write a tie-in digital serial as the launch title for a new company called Boxfiction.

Former Press Books m.d. John Bond is working with the company, which launches on Monday (21st November), in an advisory capacity. Dubbed "a TV series that you read", Boxfiction will sell "episodes" of a book each week from its website, www.boxfiction.com.

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Man Booker winner Julian Barnes could be up for an unprecedented double after receiving a nomination for the best novel of the year in the 2011 Costa Awards.

Barnes' The Sense of an Ending is up against John Burnside, Andrew Miller and Louisa Young for the best novel award. If Barnes was to win and to win the overall Costa Book of the Year prize, he would be the first author to win both it and the Man Booker for the same book.

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The US Authors Guild has accused Amazon.com of "boldly breaching its contracts" with publishers by signing them up to its new Kindle Lending programme without permission.

It claimed it is doing this to drive sales of its Kindle Fire, which is up against the Apple iPad and Barnes & Noble Nook in the US' increasingly fraught e-reader wars.

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Hilary Mantel will turn her attention to the downfall of Anne Boleyn, after Fourth Estate bought the follow-up to her Man Booker prizewinning Wolf Hall.

Publishing director Nicholas Pearson bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Bring Up the Bodies from Bill Hamilton at AM Heath. The book will be published in May 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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Simon & Schuster has appointed Meg Wang as editorial director for licensed properties.

She will be responsible for the publisher's licensed character list, which includes tie-ins for the likes of the Smurfs, the Nickelodeon portfolio, Mike the Knight and Octonauts. She will also direct the development of digital products for the characters.

She starts the newly created role on 28th November and joins from Penguin, where she was media and entertainment editorial director.

HarperCollins is publishing a new book by Wayne Rooney, having dismissed suggestions that it was on the brink of renegotiating the lucrative contract it has with the Manchester United and England striker.

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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 Children's Books has bought world rights to the original Bugsy Malone book, which was later adapted into the much loved musical.

Publisher Ann-Janine Murtagh bought rights to the novel and graphic novel directly from the author Sir Alan Parker, who later adapted his own title for the screen. The book will be available from Sunday (6th November), when the BFI will screen the movie and host a Q&A with the director and cast. It features an author's note about the making of the movie and a foreword from the author Lauren Child.

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Simon & Schuster has bought rights to an autobiography by Australian swimming star Ian Thorpe.

World rights from Jonathan Kilmartin and Sarah Wooldridge at IMG by Larissa Edwards, S&S's Australian head of publishing, and Rhea Halford, S&S UK sports commissioning editor. The book will be published in October 2012.

The memoir will follow the five time gold medallists attempts to make the London 2012 Olympic games and reflect on previous successes.

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