Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Weekly news >

Big Sky lands 17-book deal for US rights

Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Big Sky Publishing has sold North American and US territories rights to 17 children’s book titles to independent educational publishing house Rosen Publishing. Set in motion at the 2018 Frankfurt...

VIPs announced for SWF 2019

Monday, 18 February 2019
The Australia Council for the Arts has announced the guests attending the 2019 Visiting International Publishers (VIPs) program, to be held alongside the Sydney Writers’ Festival in late April and...

Hardie Grant acquires Turnbull memoir

Friday, 15 February 2019
Hardie Grant Books has acquired world rights to a memoir by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The book is described as ‘an in-depth and definitive narrative of Turnbull’s prime ministership...

Morris, Morton, Nunn shortlisted for 2019 Audie Awards

Friday, 15 February 2019
Three Australian audiobooks have been named as finalists in the 2019 Audie Awards, presented by the Audio Publishers Association (APA) in the US. The audiobook editons of The Tattooist of Auschwitz...

PRH Australia launches local speakers bureau

Thursday, 14 February 2019
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has announced it will establish a local speakers bureau, which will coordinate PRH authors’ speaking engagements for corporate clients, and the business, government and academic...

KYD launches writing prize for school students

the logo for kill your darlings Thursday, 14 February 2019
Kill Your Darlings (KYD) has launched a new writing prize, designed to develop, mentor, edit and publish the work of two writers from Australian secondary schools. The inaugural KYD School...

Scribe acquires McKay’s debut novel

Wednesday, 13 February 2019
Scribe has acquired world rights to Laura Jean McKay’s debut novel, The Animals in That Country, a literary spec-fic novel that imagines a world in which humans and animals might finally...

‘Catching Teller Crow’ sold to UK, US

Tuesday, 12 February 2019
UK and US rights to Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina's YA novel Catching Teller Crow (A&U) have been sold to Penguin Children's Books UK and Knopf respectively. The book will be published in...

Tan’s ‘Rubik’ optioned for film

Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Brio Books has sold the film option to Elizabeth Tan’s debut novel Rubik to Australian production company Photoplay. Photoplay develops projects in film, television, web and virtual reality, and is known for its...

Seizure announces 2019 Viva la Novella shortlist

Monday, 11 February 2019
Seizure has announced the shortlist for the 2019 Viva la Novella competition. This year’s shortlisted authors and their works are: Carly Cappielli for ‘Listurbia’ Grace Chan for ‘The Ship of...

Stella Prize 2019 longlist announced

Friday, 8 February 2019
The longlist for the 2019 Stella Prize, worth $50,000, has been announced. The longlisted titles are: Little Gods (Jenny Ackland, A&U) Man Out of Time (Stephanie Bishop, Hachette) Bluebottle (Belinda...

New Macquarie Uni research to examine Aus rights sales

Friday, 8 February 2019
The Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund and the Australia Council for the Arts will contribute $30,000 each to a new Macquarie University study examining the international rights sales and export of...

Redundancies announced at PRH Young Readers, Walker Books 

Thursday, 7 February 2019
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) and Walker Books Australia have both announced redundancies in their publishing divisions. At PRH, three roles in the Young Readers division—two editorial roles and one...

Young and McIlvanney awarded in 2019 Waitangi Day Honours

Thursday, 7 February 2019
Samoan/Maori writer Lani Wendt Young and Dunedin-based crime author Liam McIlvanney have been awarded in the New Zealand Society of Authors’ (NZSA) annual Waitangi Day Honours. Young, a columnist and...

Penguin Literary Prize shortlist 2019 announced

Thursday, 7 February 2019
Penguin Random House (PRH) has announced the shortlist for the 2019 Penguin Literary Prize, worth $20,000. The prize, now in its second year, aims to find and develop new Australian...

Quaedvlieg ends contract with MUP

Wednesday, 6 February 2019
Former Australian Border Force commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg is the first author to publicly terminate a book contract with Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) after the resignation of four board directors and CEO...

‘The Trauma Cleaner’ longlisted for Wellcome Book Prize

Wednesday, 6 February 2019
Sarah Krasnostein’s The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay and Disaster (Text) has been longlisted for the UK’s Wellcome Book Prize. The annual prize, worth £30,000 (A$53,720),...