Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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Bertelsmann to buy S&S, court dismisses HarperCollins defamation case

Penguin Random House’s parent company Bertelsmann announced it will acquire Simon & Schuster from media company ViacomCBS for US$2.175 billion.

Last week, a federal court judge dismissed a defamation case brought against HarperCollins and author Steve Cannane relating to Cannane’s 2016 book Fair Game: The incredible untold story of Scientology in Australia, following an eight-week trial. In other news, Hardie Grant Children’s launched a new illustrated imprint, the Australia Council announced the $2 million Re:imagine Sector Recovery Initiatives fund, and Sophie Masson was appointed SPN chair, replacing Michael Webster in the role.

In awards news, Craig Silvey’s Honeybee was named Dymocks Book of the Year, Gregory Day won this year’s Patrick White Award, and the winners of the Bragg Prize for Science Writing and the Scarlet Stiletto Awards were announced. The shortlist for the SPN Book of the Year Award was revealed and, in the UK, The Eighth Life won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

Overseas this week, Hachette UK is lifting entry-level salaries and boosting pay transparency as the Publishers Association begins to aggregate diversity statistics from its members. Meanwhile, a biography of the Beatles has won the £50k Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction.

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Category: This week’s news