News | Books+Publishing

IPEd announces Rosie longlist

Tuesday, 10 December 2024
The Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) has announced the longlist for the 2025 Rosanne Fitzgibbon Editorial Award, known as the Rosie. Longlisted editors—and their projects—include: Kristy Bushnell (UQP), for Love,...

UQP sells Sakr, Ahmed poetry to US and UK

Tuesday, 10 December 2024
University of Queensland Press (UQP) has sold North American and UK rights to The Nightmare Sequence, a collection of illustrated poetry by Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed, to Nightboat Books...

SLQ announces UQP as new black&write! publisher partner

Tuesday, 10 December 2024
The State Library of Queensland (SLQ) has announced a new agreement with the University of Queensland Press (UQP) to publish titles from its black&write! First Nations–led writing and editing program...

A&U acquires Starford novel

Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to Rebecca Starford’s novel The Visitor, in a deal brokered by Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown Australia. In The Visitor, ‘a woman returns...

Varuna announces 2025 Affirm Press Fellowship recipients

Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Varuna, the National Writers’ House has announced the recipients of the 2025 Affirm Press Fellowship. The fellowship recipients and their manuscripts are: Zoe Deleuil, for ‘Kita Karamel’ Kerry Munnery, for...

Internet Archive copyright case ends

Monday, 9 December 2024
The copyright case against the Internet Archive has drawn to a close after representatives from the organisation ‘decided against exercising their last option, an appeal to the [United States] Supreme...

Fremantle Australia options Jennings works for new series

Monday, 9 December 2024
Fremantle Australia has optioned the rights to a range of works from local author Paul Jennings for development of a ‘deliciously frightful’ television series. In a writing career spanning about...

Johnson wins Australian Fiction Prize

Monday, 9 December 2024
Katherine Johnson has won the inaugural Australian Fiction Prize for her unpublished manuscript A Wild Heart, receiving $20,000 in prize money and a $15,000 advance. ‘A Wild Heart is the story of...

Rose to depart ABR

Monday, 9 December 2024
Peter Rose, editor and CEO of the Australian Book Review, is set to step down from the role in 2025, the publication has announced. Rose has served in the role...

Black Friday sales up 4% on last year

Thursday, 5 December 2024
Nielsen BookData reports that Black Friday–week sales in 2024 ‘saw volume sales in the Australian book market 40% higher than the average weekly sales in the four weeks prior’, with...

Chatterji wins 2024 Wolfson History Prize

Thursday, 5 December 2024
In the UK, historian Joya Chatterji has won the £50,000 (A$98,781) Wolfson History Prize 2024 for Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century (Vintage). Previously longlisted for the Women’s Prize...

Storm acquires seven McIntosh novels

Thursday, 5 December 2024
Digital-first publishing house Storm has acquired world English language rights (ex ANZ) to seven novels by Fiona McIntosh, via Lisa Highton at Jenny Brown Associates. Acquired titles include The Orphans,...

S&S acquires Gould memoir

Thursday, 5 December 2024
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired world rights to a memoir by paramedic Sally Gould, with the working title Frog: A Memoir of Life and Death on the Frontline,...

ABR offers new science writing fellowship

Thursday, 5 December 2024
The Australian Book Review (ABR) has announced a new fellowship ‘to advance the careers of science writers and to augment ABR’s coverage of science and the history of science’. The...

ASA to fund mentorship program after Copyright Agency funding ends

Thursday, 5 December 2024
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has announced it will fund ‘a smaller iteration’ of its Award Mentorship Program until it is able to source alternative ongoing funding. In 2025,...

Updated: Trade Christmas closing dates 2024

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Books+Publishing has collated company closing dates for the Christmas and New Year holiday period. (See table below.) The Books+Publishing office will close on Friday 13 December and reopen Monday 13 January. The...

New year 2025 preview: Nonfiction

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
As we head towards 2025, publishers are preparing to send a wide array of new nonfiction titles out onto our bookshelves. Among the titles publishers are keen to highlight, booksellers...

‘I do, in fact, belong here’: Looking back and forward with the 2024 Open Book interns

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
First run as a pilot program offering two internships in 2022, the Open Book paid internship program is a joint sector initiative that aims to foster cultural and linguistic diversity...

‘There is nothing else quite like it’: Terri-ann White on Sharjah

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Publishers and literary agents from 108 countries participated in this year’s Sharjah Publishers Conference, and Upswell publisher Terri-ann White was an Australian representative to the conference. She writes on the...

Polari Prizes 2024 winners announced

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
In the UK, the winners of the 2024 Polari Prizes have been announced. The winners in each category are: Polari Book Prize (£2000; A$3908) The Gallopers (Jon Ransom, Muswell Press),...

Ampersand Prize 2024 shortlist announced

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing (HGCP) has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Ampersand Prize. The shortlisted titles are: ‘I Love a Good Murder’ by Rahnia Collins, a YA crime novel...

Pung awarded 2024 Alice Literary Award

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Alice Pung has won the Alice Literary Award, presented by the Society of Women Writers in Australia. In Pung’s acceptance speech, the author said: ‘What an honour it is, to...

Inaugural Australian Fiction Prize shortlist announced

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
The shortlist for the inaugural Australian Fiction Prize, presented by HarperCollins and the Australian, has been announced. The shortlisted manuscripts, chosen from almost 500 entries, are: ‘Blackswansong’ by Michael Burrows...