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Murdoch Books restructures sales and marketing team 

Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Murdoch Books has announced a restructure of its sales and marketing team. Mary-Jayne House has been promoted to the newly created role of sales and marketing manager, with responsibility for...

Quote of the week 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
'It brings books back to life and creates a new market for books that have been languishing on bookshelves for years. From an author's point of view it is a...

Prod Comm debate coverage continues 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
As the date of an expected cabinet decision on the future of parallel importation restrictions approaches, mainstream media coverage of the debate continues. MUP publisher Louise Adler took the opportunity...

Coetzee shortlisted for third Booker 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Summertime by Australian author J M Coetzee (Knopf) has been shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The full shortlist is: The Children's Book (A S Byatt, Chatto &...

Around the world 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Among the many international booktrade stories added to our Around the World blog in the past week:Kerr wins 125,000 Euro crime prizeAmazon to restore deleted ebooksBook Depository continues to growUK...

A&U, Black Inc. and Exisle partner with RHYW 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
ReadHowYouWant (RHYW) has announced new partnerships with publishers Allen & Unwin, Black Inc. and Exisle to create ‘accessible formats' of the publishers' titles. RHYW, which re-purposes books into special formats, including...

Hachette Australia: all titles to be FSC or PEFC 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Hachette Australia has announced that, from November, all titles under its Hachette Australia imprint will be printed on either FSC or PEFC paper. The publisher will include the FSC and PEFC...

CUP to publish Australian maths product worldwide 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
An Australian ‘online, interactive, full curriculum learning system' has been selected by Cambridge University Press as its global flagship ICT mathematics resource. Created over nine years, HOTmaths is a suit...

Bestsellers this week 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Crime author Kathy Reichs has done the unthinkable! This week she has knocked Stephenie Meyer off her comfy number one spot in the Bestsellers chart with 206 Bones. Will it...

Forthcoming events 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: Overload Poetry Festival, 4-13 SeptemberAustralian Copyright Council--2009 training program--Adelaide, 8-11 SeptemberBooks Alive 2009--author events--Melina Marchetta...

Most mentioned: this week in ‘Media Extra’ 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Australian authors J M Coetzee and Cate Kennedy were neck-and-neck for the top place on the Media Extra Most Mentioned chart this week. These weren't the only Australian writers to...

On Tour 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Authors on tour from September to November: SeptemberJeb Brugmann, UQP, (Welcome to the Urban Revolution)Joris Luyendijk, Scribe (Fit to Print)Phillip Karl, Cadmos (Twisted Truths of Modern Dressage)Padma Viswanathan, UWA Publishing...

RiP Keith Waterhouse 

Tuesday, 8 September 2009
British author and journalist Keith Waterhouse has died, aged 80. His most famous work was the novel Billy Liar.

Indigenous Literacy Day 2009: $150,000 raised to date 

Monday, 7 September 2009
This year's Indigenous Literacy Day, held last Wednesday 2 September to support the Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP), revealed ‘a wave of support and goodwill right around Australia', according to ILP...

S&S launches new Australian website 

Monday, 7 September 2009
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has announced the ‘soft launch' of its new Australian website. The new website at www.simonandschuster.com.au is ‘the first step' in an ongoing plan to improve...

In brief 

Monday, 7 September 2009
Hardie Grant acquires Universal PublishersPlease note that in a story in last week's WBN our heading incorrectly referred to Hardie Grant purchasing Universal Publishing. In fact, as stated in the story,...

Ex Libris Book Fair celebrates 10 years 

Monday, 7 September 2009
Dale Campisi of Arcade Publications reports: Port Fairy's annual Ex Libris Book Fair celebrated 10 years last weekend 5-6 September. The festival drew hundreds of people to the historic Victorian south west...

Rights round-up 

Sunday, 6 September 2009
In rights news this week: Rights soldFiction--Hachette Australia has sold As Darkness Falls and Dark Country (Bronwyn Parry) to the UK and The Book of Love (Phillipa Fioretti) to Germany....

Cochrane, Wong, win Janet Frame Awards 

Sunday, 6 September 2009
The winners of this year's Janet Frame Awards have been announced. Geoff Cochrane was the winner for poetry and Alison Wong for fiction. The Wellington authors receive NZ$10,000 (A$8,000) each...

NZ Book Design Awards–winners announced 

Sunday, 6 September 2009
The winners of this year's Book Publishers Association of New Zealand were announced on Thursday 3 September. The best book award went to the popular Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home...

Media Extra: What’s Hot? 

Sunday, 6 September 2009
Australian authors J M Coetzee and Cate Kennedy were neck-and-neck for the top place on our Most Mentioned chart this week. These weren't the only Australian writers to make the...

Quote of the week 

Tuesday, 1 September 2009
'We should never forget that a language isn't just a dialect, it is a whole way of looking at the world, the universe...'--author Richard Flanagan discussing Indigenous languages on last Thursday's...

NZ government stays out of Google Settlement issue 

Tuesday, 1 September 2009
As the 4 September deadline for opting into or out of the Google Settlement approaches, the New Zealand Society of Authors has expressed shock that the New Zealand Government has...

Third annual Indigenous Literacy Day kicks off 

Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Today is the third annual Indigenous Literacy Day, with fundraising events taking place around the country and many booksellers and publishers donating a percentage of their profits to the Indigenous...