Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Rights and acquisitions >

UQP acquires Gíslason’s ‘The Sorrow Stone’ 

Thursday, 15 July 2021
UQP has acquired world rights to The Sorrow Stone by Kári Gíslason, co-author of Saga Land (with Richard Fidler, ABC Books). Set against the backdrop of medieval Norway and Iceland, The...

UQP sells ‘The White Girl’ to HarperVia 

Wednesday, 14 July 2021
UQP has sold world English rights (ex ANZ) for The White Girl by Tony Birch to HarperCollins imprint HarperVia. The deal was handled by UQP rights manager Kate McCormack in...

‘Ginnie & Pinney, Learn & Grow’ series optioned for TV

Wednesday, 7 July 2021
Big Sky Publishing’s educational children's series Ginnie & Pinney, Learn & Grow has been optioned for development as a television series by Australian animation studio Moody Street Productions. Created by...

Hachette acquires Yarwood debut in two-book deal

Wednesday, 30 June 2021
Hachette Australia has acquired ANZ rights to Sydney author Dianne Yarwood’s debut novel The Wakes in a 'hotly contested' international auction. The six-figure, two-book deal was struck with Catherine Drayton...

Ultimo acquires Jafari debut ‘Forty Nights’ 

Tuesday, 29 June 2021
Ultimo Press has acquired ANZ rights to Pirooz Jafari’s literary fiction debut Forty Nights, in a deal brokered by Grace Heifetz at Left Bank Literary. Forty Nights is a novel...

Affirm acquires Berry’s ‘Fearlessly Failing’ 

Monday, 28 June 2021
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to nutritionist and podcast host Lola Berry’s new personal development book Fearlessly Failing. Affirm said Fearlessly Failing is ‘a guide to embracing challenges and...

Transit Lounge acquires Howell debut 

Thursday, 24 June 2021
Transit Lounge has acquired world English rights to Adriane Howell's debut novel Hydra, via Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary. The novel’s protagonist is Anja, a disgraced antiquarian who comes to...

NewSouth acquires Kamenev’s ‘Kin’

Wednesday, 23 June 2021
NewSouth has acquired ANZ rights to Kin: Family in the 21st century by journalist Marina Kamenev via Melanie Ostell Literary. In Kin, Kamenev will investigate how traditional ideas of family...

Affirm signs first debut from Sweatshop mentorship 

Tuesday, 22 June 2021
Affirm Press has acquired a debut novel by Shirley Le, the first book to be acquired through the Affirm Press Mentorship for Sweatshop Writers. Le, a Vietnamese-Australian writer from Yagoona,...

‘Fight Like a Girl’ to be adapted for TV

Tuesday, 22 June 2021
Aquarius Films has acquired all development and production rights to Clementine Ford’s nonfiction book Fight Like a Girl (A&U), in a deal negotiated by Jacinta Dimase at Jacinta Dimase Management....

Welbeck Flame acquires five-book ‘Hedgewitch’ series 

Thursday, 17 June 2021
Welbeck Flame, the children’s imprint of UK publisher Welbeck Publishing Group, has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (ex Canada) to a five-book middle-grade series by debut Australian author Sky McKenna,...

Scribner acquires Ballard’s ‘I, Millennial’ 

Monday, 7 June 2021
Simon & Schuster has acquired I, Millennial: One snowflake’s screed against plague, boomers, billionaires & everything else by comedian Tom Ballard, to be published under its Scribner imprint. The publisher...

UQP acquires Haddad debut novel ‘Losing Face’

Thursday, 3 June 2021
UQP has acquired world rights to Losing Face, the debut novel by Sydney writer George Haddad. Losing Face interweaves the stories of Joey, who has recently finished school and is...

‘The Nancys’ optioned for screen

Wednesday, 2 June 2021
Screen adaptation rights to crime novel The Nancys by Melbourne-based New Zealand author R W R McDonald (A&U) have been optioned by Queensland production company Hoodlum Entertainment, via Grace Heifetz...

Splice acquires Ouston debut novel ‘Clouds’ 

Tuesday, 25 May 2021
UK independent press Splice has acquired world English rights to debut novel Clouds by Hobart author Adam Ouston, via Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary. According to Shaw, Clouds is 'an...

‘The Yield’ optioned for screen 

Thursday, 20 May 2021
Tara June Winch's 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning novel The Yield (Penguin) has been optioned for screen adaptation. Winch is represented by Melanie Ostell Literary with the option and purchase...

NewSouth acquires Foster bushranger history 

Friday, 14 May 2021
NewSouth has acquired world rights to Boundary Crossers: The hidden history of Australia’s other bushrangers by historian Meg Foster. ‘For too long, bushranging has been cast as the exclusive domain of...

Affirm acquires ‘After Australia’ companion anthology 

Thursday, 13 May 2021
Affirm Press will publish Another Australia, a new speculative fiction companion anthology to last year's After Australia, again in partnership with Diversity Arts Australia and the Western Sydney literacy movement Sweatshop....

Reece YA novel ‘Mice’ to be adapted for film

Friday, 7 May 2021
Gordon Reece's 2010 young adult novel Mice (A&U) will be adapted into a feature film by Nicole Kidman’s production company Blossom Films and Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories. Mice is a psychological...