Merry Christmas: Our 2016 highlights and plans for 2017
As the end of the year approaches (we published our Christmas preview in July and our 2017 fiction, nonfiction and children’s/YA previews in October, so it feels like it’s been a long time coming), we wanted to send a letter to our readers reflecting on our highlights for the year and outlining our plans for 2017.
This year we published 242 pre-publication reviews of Australian and New Zealand-originated titles (that is, books that were written by an Australian or New Zealand author or first published in Australia or New Zealand). We are proud to be the source of so much local books content. We continue to buck the trend that sees books by male authors disproportionately reviewed, and we also publish a huge number of children’s and YA reviews (45% of all reviews in 2016).
This year we introduced two new columnists to Books+Publishing magazine: University of Western Australia Publishing director Terri-ann White, who wrote about the state of the Australian book industry; and former Nielsen Book Australia general manager Shaun Symonds, who shared his insights on book data. We enjoyed bringing you the ‘Small Publisher Spotlight’, a series of online Q&As with Australian small presses. And we think this year’s Think Australian publication, which was distributed at the Frankfurt Book Fair and widely online, was one of our best—and have plans to expand its reach in 2017.
After launching our first Book Buzz newsletter in late 2015, we’ve published seven Book Buzzes in 2016—with excellent feedback from publishers. Our new advertising sales manager Fi Tunnicliff joined our team in 2016. And we upgraded our webhost in mid-2016 to allow our website to run with fewer interruptions.
Next year, the Books+Publishing website, Weekly Book Newsletter and other newsletters will be relaunched with new ad sizes and rates. Among the changes, the box ads will be replaced by banner ads that will be located within the text of the newsletters. We think the new design will create a much more enjoyable reading experience. For more information on the new ad sizes and rates, download the 2017 Books+Publishing Media Kits here.
Finally, don’t forget to send us your book-industry news and pre-publication titles for review next year. You can find our editorial deadlines for 2017 here. And if you have any issues renewing your Books+Publishing subscription for the new year, please email subscriptions@thorpe.com.au.
As the custodians of Books+Publishing, the book industry’s trade news since 1921, we appreciate and thank everyone for their ongoing support.
Andrea Hanke
Editor-in-chief
Books+Publishing
Category: Recently published by B+P
