News | Books+Publishing

‘The Windy Season’ wins 2017 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Sam Carmody’s The Windy Season (A&U) has won the 2017 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Carmody’s novel, which follows 20-year-old Paul as he travels to a fictional West Australian...

Echo acquires midlife dating guide Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Bonnier Publishing’s Echo imprint has acquired world rights to Kerri Sackville’s Out There: A Survival for Guide for Dating in Midlife via Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown Australia. Out There...

HGE announces 2017 Ampersand Prize shortlist Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Hardie Grant Egmont (HGE) has announced the shortlist for its 2017 Ampersand Prize for unpublished YA and middle-grade authors. The six shortlisted authors and their works are: Lincoln Law for...

ABC’s ‘The Book Club’ to host year-end special, announces book industry’s favourite 2017 reads Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
ABC TV’s The Book Club will host a year-end special episode on 19 December when it will announce the results of its ‘five of the best’ reader poll for 2017....

Print and ebook sales on the rise in the UK Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Early results from the Bookseller’s annual digital census of UK publishers has found that print and ebook sales are on the rise, with audiobook sales ‘seeing rapid growth despite being...

Asher Award 2017 shortlist announced Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has announced the shortlist for the 2017 Asher Literary Award. The shortlisted titles are: Our Lady of the Fence Post (J H Crone, UWA...

‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ coming to Melbourne in 2019 Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be coming to Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in early 2019. The play, based on an original new story by J K Rowling, Jack Thorne...

Noted festival on hiatus in 2018 Archive

Tuesday, 24 October 2017
Canberra’s experimental writers’ festival Noted will not be held in 2018. The festival announced on its website in September that it will spend the next year ‘looking at ways to...

‘Hickory Dickory Dash’ to be read for 2018 National Simultaneous Storytime Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
Tony Wilson and Laura Wood’s new picture book Hickory Dickory Dash (Scholastic)—released in February 2018—has been chosen for the Australian Library and Information Association’s (ALIA) National Simultaneous Storytime next year....

Beyond print: Exploring transmedia narratives Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
UQP nonfiction publisher Alexandra Payne explores the potential of transmedia narratives for publishers. (more…)

Write on: 2018 fiction preview Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
New books by Ceridwen Dovey, Kristina Olsson, Melissa Lucashenko, Lloyd Jones and Gerald Murnane, and a number of highly anticipated debuts, are among Australian publishers' local highlights for 2018, reports...

Write on: 2018 nonfiction preview Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
Andrea Hanke reports on Australian publishers' local nonfiction highlights for 2018. Click here for the fiction highlights and here for the children’s and YA preview. ‘Riffing on the Anh Do...

Flight of fantasy: Tracy Sorensen on ‘The Lucky Galah’ Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
Tracy Sorensen’s The Lucky Galah (Picador, March) recounts the lives of ordinary Australians from the 1960s until the 2000s, as narrated by a galah called Lucky. The conceit is handled...

Shelf talk: A round-up of forthcoming books Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
Category round-ups of forthcoming titles by those in the know … Crime pays The reliably brilliant author Garry Disher’s new standalone novel Under the Cold Bright Lights (Text, November) stars...

Between the lines: Observations on the trade by Gladys Bembo Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
It’s that time of year again—the maddest week on the annual publishing calendar, as publishers and agents engage in what was once described to me as a ‘week-long speed-dating orgy’....

Editor’s picks: Summer reading Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
Jackie Tang rounds up her nonfiction highlights for the coming months. F*ck, sh*t … the compulsion to plop a naughty word with an attention-grabbing asterisk on the cover seems to...

Your store: A round-up of retailing news, tips and titbits Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
Analogue marketing At the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) conference in June, The Constant Reader’s Jay Lansdowne hosted a panel on analogue (ie in-store) marketing with Fiona Stager (Avid Reader), Jane...

Summer bestsellers: A look at the post-Christmas charts Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
When the Christmas frenzy has died down, what sells during the rest of the summer? Brad Jefferies explores the trends behind the post-Christmas bestsellers. (more…)

The millennial market: Publishing for a new generation Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
They’re a generation more talked about than listened to, but the collective spending power of millennials is set to grow. Sarah Farquharson investigates how publishers are tapping into the millennial...

Natural appreciation: Lex Hirst’s career journey Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
‘In all my roles I search for talented people with fascinating work and find them new audiences,’ writes Penguin Random House commissioning editor, festival director and arts programmer Lex Hirst....

Talkback: Authors and booksellers on stocking self-published books Archive

Monday, 23 October 2017
With a number of traditionally published authors moving into self-publishing, there’s never been a greater demand for bricks-and-mortar bookstores to stock self-published titles. Andrea Hanke asked hybrid author Ellie Marney...