Speech: Helen Garner accepts the OzCo Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature
6 March 2019
Earlier this week, Helen Garner was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature at a ceremony in Sydney. The following is her acceptance speech, republished in...
Australian market overview
28 February 2019
For the past few years the Australian retail book market has been posting marginal growth (‘flat is the new up’ is a common catch-cry). In 2018, Nielsen BookScan reported that...
A new hope for un-real fiction: Rose Michael on speculative fiction
20 February 2019
The realist stranglehold on Australian publishing may be loosening, as publishers and prize panels become more open to speculative fiction, writes Rose Michael. At the end of last year I...
Winter Institute 2019: Staff engagement, tech tools and ‘surviving the political divide’
13 February 2019
Jay Lansdown, owner of Sydney bookshop The Constant Reader and vice-president of the Australian Booksellers Association, attended this year’s Winter Institute, an annual conference held by the American Booksellers Association, which...
Learning to be brave: Anna Walker on ‘Lottie and Walter’
7 February 2019
Anna Walker’s Lottie and Walter (Picture Puffin, March) tells the story of a little girl who is scared to get in the water, but who finds courage in a singing walrus...
Podcast spotlight: The Wheeler Centre podcast
12 December 2018
Established in 2010, The Wheeler Centre (TWC) podcast features full recordings of talks hosted in TWC building in Melbourne. TWC senior digital editor Jon Tjhia has been working on the...
Christmas predictions: Louise Pfanner from Gleebooks in Sydney
12 December 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and ‘surprise sellers’. In this final instalment...
Audiobooks, data-driven publishing discussed at FutureBook 2018
12 December 2018
The ‘audio gold rush’, data-driven publishing and the importance of surprise in an increasingly algorhythmic world were some of the topics covered at this year’s wide-ranging FutureBook Live conference, which...
Christmas predictions: Sean Guy from The Bookshop Darwin
7 December 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and ‘surprise sellers’. In this instalment,...
Christmas predictions: the Hobart Bookshop team
7 December 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and ‘surprise sellers’. In the this week’s...
Attendance up at SPN conference 2018, ‘incredibly positive’ response
5 December 2018
The Small Press Network’s (SPN) seventh Independent Publishing Conference was held at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on 22-24 November. SPN general manager Tim Coronel said the response to this...
Christmas predictions: Katy Downey from the Leaf Bookshop in Ashburton
30 November 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and 'surprise sellers'. In...
Christmas predictions: James Redden from Harry Hartog in Canberra
23 November 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers. In the this week's...
Children’s book boom: Alice Grundy on the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair
21 November 2018
As part of the Shanghai Visiting International Publishers Project, Brio Books associate publisher Alice Grundy travelled to China to attend the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair (9-11 November). She...
For love or money: employment in the Australian publishing industry in 2018
21 November 2018
Books+Publishing surveyed over 300 readers to create a detailed picture of employment in the book industry in 2018. Small Press Network associate producer Jessica Harvie and Books+Publishing editor-in-chief Andrew Wrathall checked the stats. These results...
Christmas predictions: Megan O’Brien from Brunswick Bound in Melbourne
16 November 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and ‘surprise sellers’. In the this...
Podcast spotlight: So You Want to Be a Writer
14 November 2018
Established in 2014, So You Want to Be a Writer is made by the Australian Writers’ Centre (AWC) and co-hosted by author Allison Tait and AWC CEO Valerie Khoo. Each episode covers...
Christmas predictions: Annie Waters from Mostly Books in Adelaide
9 November 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and ‘surprise sellers’. In the second...
Podcast spotlight: Write Through the Roof
8 November 2018
Hosted by speculative fiction author Madeleine D’Este, Write Through the Roof is a podcast for writers who want to improve their craft. Guests have included crime writer Emma Viskic and...
A remarkable entry point: Terri-ann White on the Sharjah International Book Fair
8 November 2018
UWA Publishing director Terri-ann White travelled to the United Arab Emirates to attend the Sharjah International Book Fair, which runs from 31 October to 10 November. As a publisher who is...
Lifelong learning: Younger readers editions
1 November 2018
Kelsey Oldham investigates the role played by younger readers editions in the growth of children’s nonfiction. It’s a well-established fact that adult nonfiction titles sell strongly in Australia. In 2018...
Shelf talk: Crime pays
30 October 2018
As readers wave goodbye to those long lazy days surrounded by books and blankets, there are a few killer books coming out over summer to spark a bit of danger...
Shelf talk: Fantastic fiction
30 October 2018
The new year is the time I always tell myself I’m going to step back a bit and recover from the Christmas retail frenzy. I never do though, since there...
Shelf talk: Women’s stories
30 October 2018
Humour is back in a big way in women’s fiction, starting in February with The Rosie Result (Text). Could there be a more fitting title to the final book in...
Written in the stars: Minnie Darke on ‘Star-crossed’
30 October 2018
Minnie Darke’s Star-crossed (Michael Joseph, March) follows an aspiring journalist who begins to tinker with her paper’s astrology section after learning that her crush consults his horoscope whenever he’s faced with making...
Bound together: Kate Richards on ‘Fusion’
30 October 2018
Kate Richards’ Fusion (Hamish Hamilton, February 2019) tells the story of conjoined twins, their carer, and an injured stranger who is brought into their isolated bush home. Reviewer Jacqui Davies described...
Keen for 2019: A round-up of forthcoming children’s and YA titles
30 October 2018
2019 sees the release of new children’s books from rapper Adam Briggs, fashion designer Collette Dinnigan and engineer and media personality Yassmin Abdel-Magied, plus new YA from Jay Kristoff and...
Ringing in the new year: 2019 title preview
30 October 2018
New books by Peggy Frew, Claire G Coleman and Carrie Tiffany are among the local highlights from Australian publishers, reports Sarah Farquharson. Fiction After the success of Christian White’s The Nowhere...
Pen to paper: Publishing the writing of the African diaspora
30 October 2018
African and African-Australian writers are finding a voice in Australian literature, but they continue to face many challenges. Marisa Wikramanayake investigates. Stories from people of African descent are ‘largely missing...
Book bites: A taste of books to come
30 October 2018
Picture this With a brand new year of school on the horizon, there are plenty of picture books to get early readers prepared for their first day: On The First...
