Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Following last week's announcement that an investor group led by Ripplewood Holdings had agreed to acquire Reader's Digest, managing director of Reader's Digest Australia Paul Heath told WBN it was...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
John Wiley & Sons was named Supplier of the Year at this year's annual Australian Campus Booksellers Association (ABCA) conference, held in Brisbane on 16 and 17 November. Pearson Education...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
This week's bestselling title benefited from a little unexpected media attention. Schapelle Corby's memoir My Story raced to the top of the charts amid reports that the convicted drug smuggler...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Publishers/distributors are asked to advise WBN of their Christmas closing dates by 4 December. A full list will appear once only in WBN on 6 December, listing each company's last...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
American novelist William Diehl, author of the bestselling legal thriller Primal Fear (Vintage), has died at the age of 81. Diehl began his writing career while serving as a juror.

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Packer's Lunch by Neil Chenoweth (Allen & Unwin) and Asbestos House by Gideon Haigh (Scribe) are the two titles shortlisted for the 2006 Blake Dawson Waldron Prize for Business Literature.Now...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
The annual general meeting of the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) was held on the weekend of 18-19 November.‘Major successes of the last two years were the 2006 eighth...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
The 2005-06 annual report of the Public Lending Right (PLR) scheme has been released, showing detailed figures on the recipients of over $7 million in funds from PLR and $10.4...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
International publisher Parragon has announced the opening of its Australasian business, based in Melbourne and headed by Ian Ashmore. Ashmore, who formerly headed the publishing division of Funtastic, has been...

Thursday, 23 November 2006
If you haven't yet discovered all the useful new features of the online WBN, why not grab hold of a FREE copy of Weekly Book Newsletter for Dummies?Written by the...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
It's a case of too many memoirs, too few titles. This week there are two books in the top 10 bestsellers that share the same title. Peter Cosgrove's My Story...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
In news from our Around the World blog this week: a new audiobook device with built in player due in the UK in April; Howard Davies named chair of judges...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
The 2007 Gourmand world cookbook awards will be held next year in Beijing from 4 April to 8 April. The five-day event includes cookbook exhibitions, conferences and masterclasses, with the...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
A group of investors led by Ripplewood Holdings has agreed to acquire Reader's Digest (RDA), subject to shareholder approval, in a sale expected to close in the first quarter of...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
As reported in last week's WBN, the Australia Council's literature board has announced a total of $2.1 million worth of grants to writers around Australia and a further $980,000 to...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
As widely reported in the mainstream media, Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp media company owns HarperCollins, has announced the cancellation of plans to publish If I Did It, a book...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Nicholas Marland has been named the winner in the ‘words' category of this year's Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards (SOYAs). Marland, whose ‘darkly humorous' writing has been published in Voiceworks...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
As the festive season approaches, the Events Calendar is rapidly filling up with book festivals, book launches and, of course, Christmas parties. Events coming up over the next week include:...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Footprint Books has acquired fellow distributor Astam Books. From 7 December 2006, most publishers’ lists that were available from Astam Books will be distributed by Footprint Books, including MIT Press,...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Publishers/distributors are asked to advise WBN of their Christmas closing dates by 4 December. A full list will appear once only in WBN on 6 December, listing each company's last...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
American economist and Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman has died of heart failure at the age of 94. The best known of Friedman's many published works are Capitalism and Freedom (University...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Children's book author and illustrator Ursula Moray Williams has died at the age of 95. Williams was best known for her classic children's book Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER magazine has commenced work on a special report into technology and innovation in the book industry, to be published in March 2007.The report will focus on how technology can...

Monday, 20 November 2006
Your Summer Holiday - Booked!, a summer fiction promotional sampler, will be distributed to participating booksellers next week.Produced by BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER magazine and designed by award-winning designer Ellie Exarchos, the 16-page colour...

Monday, 20 November 2006
Anthologist John Leonard (who edited Seven Centuries of Poetry in English; Australian Verse, an Oxford Anthology; New Music; and Contemporary Australian Poetry) has announced the establishment of the John Leonard...

Monday, 20 November 2006
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) has announced the launch of digical, a forum for online discussion about key issues on copyright issues for writers, publishers and all rightsholders.‘digical comes at a...