Tuesday, 7 April 2009
McGraw-Hill Education saw a 2.5% decline in total revenue in 2008, according to Publisher's Weekly. A 5.4% decline in its school education group contributed to the overall decline. Total revenue...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The Tasmania Book Prize was announced during Tasmania's Ten Days on the Island Festival, held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The $25,000 award went to James Boyce for...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The Castlemaine State Festival in country Victoria concluded on 5 April, having run from 27 March. Ross Donlon, curator of the Literature Program, told WBN it was a ‘very successful'...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Jillian Ewart of NZ's Bookseller's News reports:Martin Taylor's presentation on The Rise and Fall and Rise of E-books kick-started New Zealand's Digital Publishing Seminars last week. Digital Publishing Seminars were...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Random House Australia made 11 positions redundant as of 5 March. WBN understands that many of those made redundant were in sales, particularly reps, but that other departments have also...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
WA shopping centres pushed to extend trading hours The Shopping Centre Council of Australia has suggested extended weeknight trading hours and Sunday trading in Western Australia would be beneficial to...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Women's Bookshop celebrates 20 years Auckland's Women's Bookshop has celebrated 20 years with a night of literary celebration. More than 700 people attended the party, with ‘grandeur, comedy, pathos and...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The sixth Williamstown Literary Festival will be held from 1 to 3 May 2009 with the theme of ‘Hidden Life of Suburbs'. The Williamstown Literary Festival looks at the rich...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
An accreditation system has been introduced by the Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) in Australia, in order to assure employers that quality of work and industry standards are met...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Tracy Ryan is the winner of the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize, worth $4000, for her poem ‘Lost Property'.Ryan told WBN the last year-and-a-half have been ‘big' for her ‘with...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Well known chart-busting author Jodi Picoult comes first in the Highest New Entries this week with Handle with Care, which also comes at number five in the Bestsellers. Picoult has...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: Calibre Prize function at State Library of Victoria, 8 AprilSWANCON 2009, Perth, 9-13 AprilTo view...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Australian journalist and author Peter Wherrett has died, aged 72. He wrote Desirelines: An Unusual Family Memoir as well as many motoring books.

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Melbourne Writers Festival has revealed two of the authors booked for this year's festival (MWF), to take place 21-30 August, 2009. Muriel Barbery is the author of The Elegance of...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Hachette Australia has closed its Melbourne office. The office, which produced the company's Lothian Children's Books, closed on 31 March.The closure comes after the retirement of children's publisher Helen Chamberlin at the...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Borders will open a new store in Robina on the Gold Coast this week. Borders Asia Pacific managing director John Coote said the 'two-level, 1800sqm store would have more than...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
In rights news this week:  FictionHachette Australia has sold ‘The Castings Trilogy' by Pamela Freeman to France and Ember and Ash by Pamela Freeman to the UK. Text has sold...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Among the stories added to our Around the World blog in the past week:Google Book Search 'all about the orphans'Bloomsbury sees sales and profits fall in 2008UK sees 20% drop...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Several Australian authors and publishers have participated in the second Australian Writers' Week in Beijing and Chengdu, China, from 16 to 20 March. In attendance were authors Henry Reynolds, Kate...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The full program for the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, which will run from 13 to 17 May, has been released. ‘I can confidently say it's going to be a...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
As reported in a special WBN bulletin yesterday, the shortlist for this year's Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year awards has been announced. To view the...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The winner of the 2009 National Biography Award, worth $20,000, is Ann Blainey for I Am Melba (Black Inc.) ‘Ann Blainey has had to peel away layers of the cult...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Though the ABC Fiction Award was not given this year, two titles were commended by ABC Books--Nanu Grewal's Twenty Twelve and Peter Menadue's Crooked House. The judges also decided on a...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The five titles shortlisted for the inaugural Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize have been announced. The titles in the running for the NZ$12,500 (A$10,108) prize, of which...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The 2009 Sydney Writers' Festival Program has been launched. Festival director Wendy Were said the festival would offer a ‘wide-ranging' program, including events exploring ‘ideas that stem from the recent...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Webcke's book backShane Webcke's book Hard Road (Macmillan), which the author last week requested be pulped, will now be published as planned and will arrive in stores over the next...