Sector gender pay gaps released; Australia Reads announces LitUp; ABDA longlists revealed
The Australian Government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency has published data on gender pay gaps for the second year in a row, indicating that many large publishing houses continue to have gender pay gaps well above the Australian workforce midpoint of 12.1%, while several organisations in the sector have reduced their pay gaps compared to last year’s report. In other industry news, Australia Reads has followed up the release of its Understanding Australian Readers report with the announcement of LitUp, a new pilot project to support live literature events in regional and outer-metropolitan areas; while literary agent and media manager Benython Oldfield has left the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
Turning to awards, UWA Publishing has created the Gail Spiers Prize, a new national children’s manuscript prize; and UQP announced Rachel Morton as the winner of the 2025 UQP Quentin Bryce Award for her novel The Sun Was Electric Light. The longlists for the 2025 Australian Book Design Awards were announced, while overseas, Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love by Sophie Elmhirst (Vintage) won the 2024 Nero Gold Prize, and Barbra Streisand (My Name is Barbra, Cornerstone Digital) was the big winner at the 2025 Audie Awards.
Also in international news, Publishers Weekly reported that, in the US, at the 2025 Winter Institute bookselling event, several bookstore owners ‘once again protested the [American Booksellers Association (ABA)] board’s failure [to] take a clear stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.’
A number of acquisitions have been announced this week: Scholastic Australia secured world rights to two new series for young readers by Bradley Trevor Greive, in deals brokered by Belinda Bolliger at Key People Literary Management; and HarperCollins Publishers Australia acquired world rights to Pilbara by Judy Nunn, in a deal brokered by publishing director Brigitta Doyle and fiction and nonfiction publisher Roberta Ivers, with Karen Reid at Reid Books. Meanwhile, Simon & Schuster announced two acquisitions: The House on Tinker Street, a new novel from Amy Matthews, and Destination Moon, a memoir from Formula One aerodynamicist turned Lune Croissanterie founder Kate Reid. Finally, Transit Lounge has acquired a second novel from Alan Fyfe – The Cross Thieves is planned for publication in early 2026.
Elsewhere on the literary internet, Publishers Weekly reported that Julia Sommerfeld has been named worldwide publisher at Amazon Publishing; while the Bookseller reported UK Booksellers Association research indicating that one in six bookseller staffers have experienced abuse or harassment from customers; and, closer to home,
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Category: This week’s news
