Booktopia results down, Ena Noël shortlists, rural and regional writers’ festivals

In a trading update, Booktopia has announced ‘results were down year-on-year’ to the end of the first half of the 2024 financial year. Meanwhile, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation has appointed Nicole Abadee, Amara Barnes and Thomas Mayo to its board. Several rural and regional writers’ festivals have announced programs—including Clunes Book Town, Sorrento Writers Festival and the Whitsundays Writers Festival (returning after a seven-year hiatus). And, in an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, journalist Raymond Bonner, co-owner of Bookoccino Bookshop in Avalon, called for a ‘fixed-price’ law in Australia.

In awards news, IBBY has announced the 2024 shortlists for the biennial Ena Noël Award; Varuna announced that Brooke Robinson has received the 2024 Cove Park International Fellowship; and, in the UK, the shortlists for the 2024 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize were announced.

Also in international news, the Bookseller reported that the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) welcomed an EU vote in favour of what the FEP called the ‘world’s first concrete regulation of AI’; and Spotify said it has paid audiobook publishers ‘tens of millions’ since launching its limited-streaming audiobook offer to subscribers in the UK, Australia and the US last year.

Category: This week’s news