Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) has appointed two new directors to its board, and announced eight members of its new editorial advisory board. Former managing director... Read more

Playwright Patricia Cornelius is one of eight winners of the 2019 Windham-Campbell Prize, which recognises English-language writers who ‘have left their mark on the world... Read more

The shortlist for the 2019 Stella Prize has been announced. The shortlisted titles are: Little Gods (Jenny Ackland, A&U) The Bridge (Enza Gandolfo, Scribe) Pink... Read more

The longlists for the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) have been announced. The titles in each category are: General fiction book of the year Nine... Read more

Allen & Unwin has acquired ANZ rights to three new children’s series by Anh Do. ‘Wolf Girl’ is the first of three new series aimed... Read more

Four Australian and New Zealand publishers have been nominated for the Bologna Prize for Best Children’s Publisher of the Year in the Oceania category. The... Read more

The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) is advising authors to contact piracy website Ebook Bike and request the removal of their titles. The ASA is... Read more

Behrouz Boochani’s Victorian Prize for Literature-winning memoir No Friend but the Mountains (Picador) has been sold in nine territories, including the US and the UK,... Read more

Alex Adsett at Alex Adsett Literary Agency has sold North American rights to Shelly Unwin’s board books You’re One! and You’re Two! (A&U, illus by... Read more

Catherine Drayton of Inkwell Management has sold world English-language rights (ex ANZ) to Helena Fox’s forthcoming YA novel How it Feels to Float (Pan Australia,... Read more

Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to Below Deck, the third book by 25-year-old author Sophie Hardcastle. Zeitgeist Agency director Benython Oldfield sold... Read more

HarperCollins Australia imprint HQ Fiction has acquired world rights to the first book in eight years by author Diane Armstrong. Titled The Collaborator and based on... Read more

Affirm Press has acquired world rights to the debut short-story collection by Victorian author Wayne Marshall, which was a runner-up in the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in... Read more

Echo Publishing has acquired world rights to Iain Ryan’s third novel, Sisters Under the Skin, via Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown. Narrated in first and... Read more

Hachette has announced its first cross-publisher modern classics list to be published in its international territories, including Australia, New Zealand, India and Ireland. Hachette Essentials... Read more

The City of Melbourne is trialling a new program of ‘quick response’ arts grants, which aim to give artists more flexible access to funding. Under... Read more

The Queenscliffe Literary Festival (QLF) has broken its record for ticket sales. Running from 11-26 May in the Victorian beachside towns of Queenscliff and Point... Read more

Australian poet David Stavanger has been shortlisted for the €10,000 (A$15,930) Moth Poetry Prize for his poem ‘Octonaut’. The prize is run by the publishers... Read more

Australian Canada-based comics artist Tommi Parrish has been announced as a finalist in the 31st annual Lambda Literary Awards—known as the ‘Lammys’—for their book The... Read more

A new community collective called Society City is establishing a secondhand bookshop in Wollongong. The member-run collective will operate the bookshop, and will also offer... Read more

Redgum Book Club is launching a ‘full-service’ literary service for schools, parents and students, which will be available nationwide. Redgum, which recently acquired school book... Read more

The Storylines Children’s Trust has announced its 2019 Notable Books list for children’s and young adult books published in the previous year. Notable books in... Read more

After launching in Australia late last year, the Publishers Publicity Circle (PPC), a networking group for book publicists, is opening a Melbourne chapter. Based on... Read more

The longlist for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for translated fiction has been announced. The 13 longlisted titles are: Celestial Bodies (Jokha Alharthi, trans by... Read more

London Book Fair (LBF), in association with the UK Publishers Association, has announced the winners of the International Excellence Awards. The bookstore of the year... Read more

In the UK, Nielsen BookScan reports that audiobooks have grown by 13% in volume during 2018. At the London Book Fair (LBF) Quantum Conference, Nielsen... Read more

The first novel translated from Uzbek to English has been awarded the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Literature Prize for a translated work... Read more

In the UK, Nielsen Book statistics commissioned by the Man Booker International Prize show that translated fiction sales in the UK grew by 5.5% in... Read more

Sales Fiction Alex Adsett Literary Agency has sold the film option to three books in the ‘Daughters of the Outback’ trilogy (Dear Banjo, True Blue... Read more

Books+Publishing’s weekly publicity round-up covers forthcoming publicity for Australian and internationally authored books due to appear in Australian media over the coming weeks. Fiction Alice... Read more

On this week’s bestsellers chart, The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, Wiley) is back in the number one spot, and David Walliams’ latest middle-grade novel Fing (illus... Read more

‘The collection boldly explores migratory experiences, rarely shying away from the realities of racism both overt and covert, the ongoing effects of colonisation in and... Read more

‘Driven more by passion than by planning, the promotion and support of children’s and teenage literature is currently piecemeal and under stress. It is urgently in need of a politically savvy alignment of players, drawing upon research and planning, to create a new centre for young people’s literature.’—Children’s and youth literature specialist Mike Shuttleworth advocates for a new home for children’s literature, after the recent ‘retirement’ of the State Library of Victoria’s Centre for Youth Literature.

The National Library of Australia (NLA) has launched an archive of Australian websites dating back to 1996, reports the ABC. The Australian Web Archive contains... Read more

Espoo City Library in Finland has been awarded the library of the year award at the London Book Fair (LBF), as part of the fair’s... Read more

International library cooperative OCLC has compiled a list of the library world’s 100 most widely held novels based on its WorldCat database, reports Publishers Weekly.... Read more

Lynette Noni’s YA fantasy series ‘The Medoran Chronicles’ has cemented her status as one of Australia’s favourite writers. She shares her journey towards becoming a... Read more

Nicola Santilli has joined Allen & Unwin as editor (children & young adults), and began the position on 4 March. Santilli was previously an editor... Read more

Joel Naoum has joined Booktopia as nonfiction category manager and will begin the position on 18 March. Naoum was the publisher at Pan Macmillan’s digital... Read more

Murdoch Books AU and UK has rebranded as part of an ongoing strategy to expand its position as a market-leading international lifestyle publisher.

‘Our rebrand is the visual reflection of an exciting new era for Murdoch Books. One where we are standing on the shoulders of our extraordinary past, while celebrating our place in the world we live in today,’ said Lou Johnson, Publishing Director.

For the past two years Murdoch Books has been reshaping its business and successfully diversifying its program by publishing into a broader range of formats and lifestyle categories, which now include: At the table; Healthy body, healthy mind; Conversation starters; and New ways of living.

‘We want to share new conversations and ideas for living life well, by providing inspiration and tools for positive change and practical support for your wellbeing,’ Johnson said.

Robert Gorman, CEO of Murdoch Books’ parent company Allen & Unwin, welcomes the rebrand.

‘We are proud to have been the home of Murdoch Books since 2012. As a global, premium lifestyle imprint, Murdoch Books is an essential part of Allen & Unwin’s publishing mix, and the rebrand is an important statement of our ambitious vision for its future,’ Gorman said.

The new branding is the result of months of research and planning. The ‘life force’ identity embodied in the company’s new logo visualises the idea of attracting and distributing ideas and creativity simultaneously.

In 2019 Murdoch Books will publish a stellar line-up of new titles from authors including: Matthew Evans (On Eating Meat); Katherine Sabbath (Bake Australia Great); Dr Ginni Mansberg (The M Word); and Luke Benedictus, Andrew McUtchen and Jeremy Macvean (The Father Hood).