Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

News >

Barry wins second Costa Book of the Year

Wednesday, 1 February 2017
Irish author Sebastian Barry has won the 2016 Costa Book of the Year award for his novel Days Without End (Faber), reports the Guardian. This is the second time the...

London longlisted for Wellcome Book Prize

Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Joan London’s novel The Golden Age (Vintage, published in the UK by Europa Editions) has been longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in the UK. The annual prize, worth £30,000...

‘Introducing Teddy’ makes ALA ‘Rainbow List’

Introducing Teddy cover Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Jessica Walton’s Introducing Teddy (illus by Dougal MacPherson, Bloomsbury) has made the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual Rainbow List’s Top Ten books with significant gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)...

‘New York Times’ to reduce bestseller lists

Tuesday, 31 January 2017
The New York Times (NYT) is dropping its print and online bestseller lists for graphic novels and manga, mass-market paperbacks, teen e-books and middle-grade e-books effective from 5 February, reports...

Whitehead, Desmond win 2017 ALA Andrew Carnegie Medals

Monday, 30 January 2017
The American Library Association (ALA) has announced the winners of the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medals. The fiction prize was awarded to Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad (Orbit) and the nonfiction...

Creative Victoria announces VicArts recipients

Friday, 27 January 2017
Several literary projects have been included among the recipients in the latest round of Creative Victoria’s VicArts Grants. The program will provide over $1.8m in funding for 87 creative projects...

Roxane Gay pulls S&S US book due to Yiannopoulos deal

Friday, 27 January 2017
Author Roxane Gay has pulled her book How to Be Heard from Simon & Schuster (S&S) in response to the far-right journalist Milo Yiannopoulos’ book deal with the US publisher’s conservative imprint Threshold Editions,...

Amazon launches £20,000 literary prize

Wednesday, 25 January 2017
In the UK, Amazon will launch a £20,000 (A$33,040) literary prize for self-published books, reports the Telegraph. The Kindle Storyteller Prize will be open to any English-language book published through...

NZSA / Hachette Mentor program recipients announced

Wednesday, 25 January 2017
The New Zealand Society of Authors and Hachette Australia have announced the recipients of the 2017 NZSA/Hachette Mentor Program. NZ writers Heidi North-Bailey and Linda Bennett will work on a...

SLV, Readings to host Melbourne book club

Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Independent bookselling chain Readings and the State Library of Victoria (SLV) will host a book club series, focusing on 10 recent books by Melbourne authors. Each event, which will be...

Publishers’ perspectives 

Tuesday, 24 January 2017
Publishers finished the Christmas period strongly, with almost all of the larger publishers reporting that Christmas sales were ‘about the same’ or up on last year following a surge in...

Big UK publishers ebook sales continue decline

Tuesday, 24 January 2017
In the UK, ebook sales for the five biggest publishers have declined for the second year in a row, reports the Bookseller. According to data supplied to the Bookseller, the...

Sydney Story Factory to open Parramatta branch

Tuesday, 24 January 2017
The Sydney Story Factory, which runs free creative writing and storytelling workshops for students, will open its second centre in Parramatta in early 2018. More than a quarter of its...

The books: Kent, Pape lead strong local lists 

Monday, 23 January 2017
Two local titles, The Good People by Hannah Kent (Picador) and The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape (Wrightbooks), were the most mentioned fiction and nonfiction titles this Christmas, with booksellers listing a...

Amazon, Apple end exclusive audiobooks deal

Monday, 23 January 2017
Apple and Amazon have ended an exclusive audiobooks deal following ‘pressure from anti-trust regulators in Germany and the European Commission’, reports the BBC. Under Apple and Amazon’s deal, Amazon-owned audiobooks...

Flynn wins inaugural XO Romance Prize

Monday, 23 January 2017
Xoum Publishing has announced Jean Flynn as the winner of the inaugural XO Romance Prize for an unpublished manuscript, for her work Lovesick. Guest judge Alexandra Nahlous called Lovesick ‘a...

On tour: Sebastian Barry

Friday, 20 January 2017
Irish author Sebastian Barry is a novelist, playwright and poet. His latest novel Days Without End (Faber), which won the Costa Novel of the Year, is the story of two American...

Larbalestier, McKinty shortlisted for 2017 Edgars

Friday, 20 January 2017
Australian author Justine Larbalestier and Melbourne-based Irish author Adrian McKinty have been shortlisted for the 2017 Edgar Allan Poe Awards (the Edgars), which honour ‘the best in mystery fiction and...