VPLAs winners, Booktopia EBITDA up 506%

Laura Jean McKay has won Australia’s richest literary prize, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, for The Animals in That Country (Scribe), at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. In other awards news, Sara M Saleh was named winner of the Australian Book Review‘s 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, and the longlists for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2021 were announced.

Also making news in the past weeks, online retailer Booktopia reported its EBITDA was up 506% for the six months to 31 December, Australia Reads is becoming an ‘always on’ campaign as it puts the call out for 2021 ambassadors, Ultimo Press released details on its first book for publication, and Portia Lindsay opened a new independent bookshop, The Book Nest, in Mudgee, NSW.

In overseas news, US author groups have asked the Department of Justice to halt PRH’s proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster, while a number of UK publishers and agencies (as well as Hachette Australia) are planning their own digital rights fairs in lieu of the postponed Bologna and London book fairs. Also in the US, the winners of the Newbery and Caldecott awards were announced.

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Category: This week’s news