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Black Friday sales up 4% on last year

Thursday, 5 December 2024
Nielsen BookData reports that Black Friday–week sales in 2024 ‘saw volume sales in the Australian book market 40% higher than the average weekly sales in the four weeks prior’, with...

Storm acquires seven McIntosh novels

Thursday, 5 December 2024
Digital-first publishing house Storm has acquired world English language rights (ex ANZ) to seven novels by Fiona McIntosh, via Lisa Highton at Jenny Brown Associates. Acquired titles include The Orphans,...

S&S acquires Gould memoir

Thursday, 5 December 2024
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired world rights to a memoir by paramedic Sally Gould, with the working title Frog: A Memoir of Life and Death on the Frontline,...

ABR offers new science writing fellowship

Thursday, 5 December 2024
The Australian Book Review (ABR) has announced a new fellowship ‘to advance the careers of science writers and to augment ABR’s coverage of science and the history of science’. The...

ASA to fund mentorship program after Copyright Agency funding ends

Thursday, 5 December 2024
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has announced it will fund ‘a smaller iteration’ of its Award Mentorship Program until it is able to source alternative ongoing funding. In 2025,...

Ampersand Prize 2024 shortlist announced

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing (HGCP) has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Ampersand Prize. The shortlisted titles are: ‘I Love a Good Murder’ by Rahnia Collins, a YA crime novel...

Pung awarded 2024 Alice Literary Award

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Alice Pung has won the Alice Literary Award, presented by the Society of Women Writers in Australia. In Pung’s acceptance speech, the author said: ‘What an honour it is, to...

Inaugural Australian Fiction Prize shortlist announced

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
The shortlist for the inaugural Australian Fiction Prize, presented by HarperCollins and the Australian, has been announced. The shortlisted manuscripts, chosen from almost 500 entries, are: ‘Blackswansong’ by Michael Burrows...

Affirm acquires Valentish self-help book

Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to self-help book The Introvert’s Guide to Leaving the House by Jenny Valentish. A Melbourne-based journalist and author, Valentish wrote the addiction memoir Woman...

Ang appointed as Hachette x MDA Trainee

Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Wen Yee Ang has been appointed as the inaugural Hachette x Media Diversity Australia (MDA) Trainee. Launched in August, the traineeship was created ‘to promote diversity and inclusivity within the...

Phillips wins 2024 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize

Tuesday, 3 December 2024
The Queensland Writers Centre (QWC) has announced that Eva Phillips has won the 2024 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for the manuscript Borrow-or-rob. Phillips receives $2250 and a publishing contract with UQP,...

A&U acquires ‘History’s Strangest Deaths’

Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to History’s Strangest Deaths by Riley Knight, in a deal brokered by Florence Dodd at WME Agency, UK. ‘[History’s Strangest Deaths] highlights the...

Wright wins 2024 Voss Literary Prize

Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy (Giramondo) was announced as the winner of the 2024 Voss Literary Prize by the Australian University Heads of English (AUHE). The prize judges said: ‘Praiseworthy is a work...

HarperCollins acquires Guthrie debut novel

Tuesday, 3 December 2024
HarperCollins has acquired ANZ rights to Sam Guthrie’s debut novel, The Compromised. HarperCollins Australia head of fiction Catherine Milne acquired the book from Tom Gilliatt at a4 Literary. UK rights...

Comic Arts Awards of Australia winners announced

Monday, 2 December 2024
The winners of the 2024 Comic Arts Awards of Australia have been announced. The recipients in each category are: Gold Ledger Deadsheet (Benji Bajorek, self published) Eventually Everything Connects (Sarah Firth, A&U)...

Funder wins Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger

Monday, 2 December 2024
Anna Funder has won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in the nonfiction category for the French translation of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life (Hamish Hamilton). The book was translated to French...

Transit Lounge acquires Colley’s second novel

Monday, 2 December 2024
Transit Lounge has acquired world rights to Brendan Colley’s second novel, The Season for Flying Saucers, via Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary. ‘I love the way Brendan Colley captures the strange in...

Blake-Beckett Trust Scholarship 2024 shortlist announced

Thursday, 28 November 2024
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Blake-Beckett Trust Scholarship. The shortlisted authors and their works are: Meg Caddy for ‘Dross Magic’, which ‘reimagines...

Copyright Agency, ASA, APA welcome Parliamentary report AI recommendations

Thursday, 28 November 2024
The Federal Government’s Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) has released its final report. The Committee was established to ‘inquire into and report on the opportunities and impacts for Australia arising out...