Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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‘The Yield’ sweeps NSW Prem’s Awards, publishers postpone pub dates and more

Over the weekend, Tara June Winch’s The Yield took out a hat-trick at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, scooping Book of the Year, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the People’s Choice Award. The Yield is also up for the literary fiction book of the year at this year’s ABIAs—the shortlists for which were announced on Tuesday.

Amid the disruption caused by Covid-19, Australian publishers are weighing up which titles should be postponed and which are to go ahead as planned, booksellers are continuing to innovate online, and the Copyright Agency has awarded emergency funding to online initiatives by Nicole Abadee, Caro Llewellyn and Tracey Spicer. Also in response to the crisis, WA and other states announced new arts funding, while Nielsen will offer one-off sales reports to ASA members seeking to apply for the government’s JobKeeper scheme.

In non-Covid news, Dymocks has a new managing director, while Hardie Grant reached a settlement with the adviser who allegedly distributed leaked copies of Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir, which the publisher says has ‘almost exhausted’ its initial 45,000 print run.

Across the ditch, New Zealand booksellers were to begin trading again as restrictions eased on Monday. In the UK, Amazon was revealed as the mystery £250k donor to the booksellers hardship fund, while organisers of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair have released the schedule for their virtual book fair, which will take place from 4–7 May.

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Category: This week’s news