Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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The Helpline (Katherine Collette, Text) 

Thursday, 28 June 2018
Germaine Johnson is an insurance probability outcomes mathematician with a burning passion for Sudoku championships. More comfortable with calculus and polynomials than people, the only job she can get post-retrenchment...

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...

Introducing MidnightSun Publishing

Friday, 15 June 2018
MidnightSun publisher Anna Solding tells Think Australian about her small South Australian press and her 'amazing' six-figure deal. What makes your press unique? We only publish books that we love....

PRH acquires ‘No Spin’ by Shane Warne

Friday, 15 June 2018
Penguin Random House (PRH) will publish Australian cricketer Shane Warne’s memoir No Spin in Australia and the UK. The publisher said the memoir will cover the bowler’s ‘extraordinary cricketing career and...

Aussie crime wave

Friday, 15 June 2018
No doubt you’ve heard of Jane Harper’s debut bestselling crime novel The Dry (Pan). It has added the accolade of crime and thriller ‘book of the year’ at the recent British Book...

What do you think of when you ‘Think Australian’?

Friday, 15 June 2018
Penguin Random House Australia’s rights manager Nerrilee Weir said recently of Australian publishing: ‘It does feel like we have a strength in that area at the moment.’ She was talking...

The Eastern Curlew (Harry Saddler, Affirm Press) 

Friday, 1 June 2018
All birds are miracles, but migratory shorebirds are perhaps the most wondrous of all. Author Harry Saddler is fascinated by the Eastern Curlews that chase summer across the hemispheres, breeding...

I Am Out with Lanterns (Emily Gale, Random House)

Thursday, 31 May 2018
I Am Out with Lanterns is nuanced, complex and thoroughly readable. Told from multiple perspectives, it follows a kaleidoscope of characters as it explores community, connections, and the desire to...

After the Lights Go Out (Lili Wilkinson, A&U)

Thursday, 31 May 2018
Emergency drills, bug-out bags, a secret underground bunker with a year’s supply of food—life’s a little different when your dad’s a doomsday prepper. Seventeen-year-old Pru Palmer and her two younger...

Zeroes and Ones (Cristy Burne, Xoum)

Thursday, 31 May 2018
Zeroes and Ones is a history of the most exciting milestones in computing, with a focus on individual inventors and innovators. It spans from Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine and Ada...

A Song Only I Can Hear (Barry Jonsberg, A&U)

Thursday, 31 May 2018
Rob Fitzgerald is 13 years old, painfully shy, prone to panic attacks, and desperately, disgustingly in love for the very first time. Rob begins receiving texts from an unknown phone...

Maya and Cat (Caroline Magerl, Walker Books) 

Thursday, 31 May 2018
Caroline Magerl has a very distinctive style of illustration and this book does not disappoint. It’s full of cats. ‘On a roof, as wet as a seal, as grey as...

Trace (Rachael Brown, Scribe) 

Thursday, 31 May 2018
Journalist Rachael Brown’s ABC podcast Trace, which earned comparisons to the global sensation Serial, investigated the cold-case murder of Melbourne bookshop owner Maria James. The 38-year-old single mother was stabbed...

Teacher (Gabbie Stroud, A&U) 

Thursday, 31 May 2018
Gabbie Stroud always wanted to be a teacher. Her childhood teachers changed her life, and she wanted to do the same for others. This memoir weaves together a broader look...