Latest overnight news from The Bookseller

New Statesman launches Women’s Prize for Politics & Economics The New Statesman and Virago have teamed up to launch a new literary prize for women writing about economics or politics in order to address the “under-representation” of female writers in those fields.

Spooks Are My Bag Publishers and booksellers are treating customers to a range of tricky competitions and ghoulishly-themed promotions for Halloween.

Gary Oldman set to publish debut novel Sphere is set to publish a debut novel co-authored by actor and filmmaker Gary Oldman and film producer Douglas Urbanski.

Harding joins Avon as commissioning editor Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, has appointed Natasha Harding as commissioning editor.

PRH and HC win BMS awards PRH’s “extraordinary” campaigns to launch Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman and Terry Pratchett’s final book, The Shepherd’s Crown have been honoured at the Book Marketing Society’s Best Marketing Awards for the summer season. HarperCollins was also awarded prizes for the campaigns for Scrabble Week and A Modern Way to Cook by Anna Jones.

Abbott wins inaugural Richell Prize Sally Abbott has won the inaugural Richell Prize for Emerging Writers for her manuscript Closing Down.

Watkins to launch Repeater imprint in January Watkins Media will launch its new Repeater imprint in January with Lean Out by Dawn Foster.

Future of academic books debated at Futurebook The future of the academic book will be debated at the FutureBook Conference, with a panel led by Dr Samantha Rayner, director of the centre for publishing at UCL.

Quercus promotes Bethan Ferguson to marketing director Quercus has promoted Bethan Ferguson to marketing director as part of a drive to strengthen its marketing and publicity departments.

Pavilion reprints Soup for Syria Pavilion Books is reprinting Soup for Syria – the cookbook published to raise money for Syrian relief – with its initial print run having sold out in just two weeks.

Novels taught Obama 'how to be a citizen' US President Barack Obama has revealed he learned the "most important" things about being a citizen from reading novels.

Female authors dominate France Autumn book sales Female authors have taken centre stage in France's traditional post-summer book sales splurge, known as "rentrée littéraire", according to market research firm GfK.