Indigenous Literacy Day takes place today; Rubbo to run new festival; Shawline CEO denies allegations
Today is the Indigenous Literacy Foundation’s Indigenous Literacy Day, being celebrated this year under the theme ‘Be a proud voice for Country’, with a special event at the Sydney Opera House and the launch of three new bilingual books: ngayawanj bagan-nggul, ngayawanj barra barra-unggul (we belong to the land, we belong to the sea), a collection of poems and stories in Dhurga and English; bagan, barra barra, mirriwarr (The Boys Who Found Their Way), written also in Dhurga and English; and Yalta Ngayuku Papa? (Where’s My Dog?), a picture book in English and Pitjantjatjara.
In other news this week, Shawline Publishing Group CEO Brad Shaw denied allegations of unpaid royalties, following the news his company is being sued by author Dan Moon in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, with Shaw claiming ‘all book sales made are paid to the authors as per royalty requirements and reports and correspondence of these in support are always available to our authors’.
Elsewhere in the industry, former Penguin Random House Australia launch title director Karen Reid has opened a new business, Reid Books PR and Literary Agency; S&S has moved offices; Readings chair Mark Rubbo announced a new Carlton-based festival, while the program for this year’s Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival was also announced; the Australian Publishers Association released the results from its inaugural sustainability survey; and Muse bookstore in Canberra closed after nine years of trading.
In awards news, the winners of the 2024 Davitt Awards were announced, as were the winners of the Australian Christian Book of the Year, the inaugural Shalom Australian Jewish Book Awards, and the Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize. The translators shortlisted for the 2024 Medal for Excellence in Translation, administered by the Australian Academy of the Humanities, have also been announced.
In acquisition news this week, Allen & Unwin has acquired ANZ rights to Claire Zorn’s novel Better Days, via Grace Heifetz at Left Bank Literary, under its Atlantic Books Australia imprint, as well as ANZ rights to the ‘uplit’ novel The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains by Sarah Clutton, in a two-book deal via Melanie Ostell from the Melanie Ostell Literary Agency; Murdoch Books has acquired world rights to the first solo cookbook by Helen Goh, Baking and the Meaning of Life; and S&S Australia has acquired world rights to two books in a new YA series by debut author Ruby Jean Cottle, via Lou Johnson and Belinda Bolliger at Key People Literary Management, as well as world rights to The Promise, a memoir from Arnold Dix.
Overseas, PRH sales were reported to have grown 8.5% in the first half of 2024, while the publisher’s operating EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) was up 13% over the same period; academic publisher Wiley has revealed it expects to make US$44 million (A$66m) from artificial intelligence partnerships that allow large language models to be trained on content from its authors, but is not giving authors the opportunity to opt out of the partnerships; in the US, six major publishers, together with the Authors Guild and several bestselling authors, have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of two provisions of Florida’s recently enacted book-banning law; and in the UK, the shortlist for the 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, which celebrates ‘the best popular science writing from across the globe’, was announced.
Category: This week’s news
