Legal Pundit, Bloom, Tackles Trayvon
NBC News legal analyst Lisa Bloom is taking on the killing of Trayvon Martin. The bestselling author of Think and Swagger sold a book about the death of the teenager, and the ensuing trial of George Zimmerman, to Counterpoint’s Dan Smetanka. (Bloom covered the trial for both Today and MSNBC.) Agent Laura Dail, who has an eponymous shingle, handled the world English rights deal. Dail said the as-yet-untitled book will offer “the inside story of the Trayvon Martin injustice,” and explore larger issues about race in America.

Rabb to HarperTeen
HarperTeen’s Alexandra Cooper bought North American rights, at auction, to Kissing in America by novelist and New York Times contributor Margo Rabb (Cures for Heartbreak). Kissing is part of a two-book deal that agent Emily van Beek at Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management brokered, and it is scheduled for summer 2015. In Kissing, a 16-year-old obsessed with romance novels leaves New York City for L.A., with best friend in tow, in search of true love. Van Beek described the book as “part love story, part madcap cross-country trip.” The second book in the deal is set for summer 2017.

Thomas Dunne Lands Michener Fellow
Jesse Donaldson sold his debut novel, The More They Disappear, to Katie Gilligan at Thomas Dunne Books. Agent David Hale Smith at Inkwell Management represented Donaldson, who is a Michener fellow and Iowa Fiction Prize finalist, selling world English rights. The book is set in a small Kentucky town where the drug-addled daughter of a prominent family murders the local sheriff and then flees. The new deputy is left to solve the crime, and contend with the rural outpost’s long history of corruption. The novel unfolds during the peak of the Oxycontin crisis, and Smith dubbed the work a “literary thriller.”

Skyhorse Takes ‘Pornographer’
The daughter of the man who distributed the blockbuster ’70s porn film Deep Throat, Kristin Battista-Frazee, sold her memoir to Holly Rubino at Skyhorse Publishing. Rubino took world rights to the book, called The Pornographer’s Daughter, from agent Craig Kayser at Kayser Pierce Literary. The book has also been optioned in Hollywood by actor/writer/comedian David Koechner (Anchorman) and producer Steve Barnett (300). In the book, which is scheduled for a fall 2014 release, Battista-Frazee, who contributes to the Daily Beast, chronicles what it was like to grow up with a dad who worked in the porn industry.