Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Free >

ALA renames Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal

Monday, 25 June 2018
In the US, a division of the American Library Association (ALA) has voted to remove the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder from a children’s book award, over concerns about how...

Donovan appointed scout for FremantleMedia

Monday, 25 June 2018
Australian editor and consultant Philippa Donovan has been appointed literary scout for production and entertainment company FremantleMedia Australia. Donovan will be covering book-to-film as well as TV adaptations for world English-language territories, with...

Writers Vic announces 2018 Glenfern Fellowships

the logo for Writers Victoria Monday, 25 June 2018
Writers Victoria has announced the recipients of this year’s Glenfern Fellowships. The fellowships were awarded to Anna Sublet for her book on grief and relationships, Melissa Manning for her collection...

NewSouth sells world English rights for ‘Wild Sea’

Friday, 22 June 2018
NewSouth Publishing has sold world English rights (ex ANZ) to Joy McCann’s Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean to the University of Chicago Press. NewSouth publisher Elspeth Menzies...

US audiobook sales up 22.7% in 2017

Friday, 22 June 2018
In the US, a new report by the Audio Publishers Association (APA) has found that audiobook sales experienced another consecutive year of double-digit growth, estimating that sales in 2017 were...

B&N posts $125m loss in fiscal 2018

Friday, 22 June 2018
US retail chain Barnes & Noble (B&N) reported a total sales decline of six percent in the fiscal year ending 28 April 2018, with revenue falling to US$3.66 billion (A$4.95bn),...

Sherwin‐Stark appointed CEO of Hachette ANZ

Friday, 22 June 2018
Hachette Australia and New Zealand (Hachette ANZ) has announced that Louise Sherwin-Stark, current joint managing director, has been appointed CEO of the publisher’s ANZ arm. In her new role, effective...

Introducing Hardie Grant Egmont

Thursday, 21 June 2018
Hardie Grant Egmont rights manager Joanna Anderson is part of a small Melbourne team doing big things. She reveals to Think Australian that almost all of the publisher’s fiction and...

‘Where is the Green Sheep?’ tops bestsellers chart

Thursday, 21 June 2018
Australian children’s book author Mem Fox consistently tops the earnings chart for Public Lending Rights and Educational Lending Rights in Australia—the system under which authors are renumerated for the borrowing...

‘Nevermoor’ scores industry hat-trick

Thursday, 21 June 2018
Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor (Lothian) has won yet another award—this time the Australian Booksellers Association Booksellers Choice Award, announced on 17 June. The children’s book has previously taken out Book of...

Masters of the middle grade

Thursday, 21 June 2018
Several years ago Hilary Rogers, then a publisher at Australian children’s imprint Hardie Grant Egmont, commissioned author Sally Rippin to write the ‘Billie B Brown’ series. It turned out to...

Taneja wins 2018 Desmond Elliott Prize

Thursday, 21 June 2018
Preti Taneja has won the 2018 Desmond Elliott Prize for first-time novelists for We Are That Young (Galley Beggar Press). A reworking of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, We Are That Young is...

International authors announced for MWF 2018

Thursday, 21 June 2018
The first international authors have been announced for the 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF), which runs from 24 August to 2 September. International guests include musician Andrew WK, who will...

McDuling appointed senior content producer at Booktopia

Booktopia logo Thursday, 21 June 2018
Booktopia has appointed Sarah McDuling to the position of senior content producer. McDuling is currently editor of Booktopia’s crime-focused and YA-focused monthly newsletters, as well as manager of Booktopia’s Tumblr...

SPN announces 2018 conference research day keynote

Thursday, 21 June 2018
The Small Press Network (SPN) has announced Monash University associate professor Rebecca Giblin as the keynote speaker for the 2018 Independent Publishing Conference academic research day, which will take place...

Tauranga council to build NZ$35 million library

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
New Zealand's Tauranga City Council (TCC) will invest NZ$35 million (A$33m) in development to replace its central library, reports Sun Live. Tauranga Libraries manager Joanna Thomas said a ‘community hub’ model...

Podcast spotlight: Dymocks Podcast

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
Established in 2012, the Dymocks Podcast includes author interviews and conversations about the world of books and publishing. Released on a weekly basis, and with an extra condensed video version...

Rights round-up

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
Sales Fiction Clare Forster at Curtis Brown Australia has sold North America rights to Second Sight (Aoife Clifford) to Pegasus Books, via Catherine Drayton at Inkwell Management. (See news.) UQP...

UK copyright specialists create copyright board game

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
In the UK, two copyright specialists have created a board game to help research students and early-career researchers understand copying and licensing choices, reports the Chartered Institute of Library and...

Amazon launches Prime in Australia

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
Amazon has launched its subscription service Prime on the company's Australian website, offering users free delivery and subscription access to ebooks, videos and games. The service will include free ‘expedited...

The ‘B+P’ guide to the Miles Franklin 2018 shortlist

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
Six titles are vying for this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award. Two of these are from multinational publishers (one each from HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan), three are from small, independent...

Vida count 2017: male writers still dominate

Wednesday, 20 June 2018
In the US, Vida, the non-profit organisation for women in literary arts, has found that female writers accounted for less than 40% of articles and reviews at more than half...