IPEd announces ‘Rosie’ shortlist
Thursday, 20 March 2025
The Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Rosanne Fitzgibbon Editorial Award. The shortlisted editors are: Kimberley Davis for Under the Weather: A Future Forecast...
Brooks memoir tops chart at 2025 Adelaide Writers’ Week
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Attendance at Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) – which ran 1–6 March 2025 as part of the Adelaide Festival – broke records in its 40th year, according to the festival. Themed...
Spotify launches indie author platform
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Streaming platform Spotify has announced a new short-form genre publishing initiative 'specifically targeting self-published authors', reports Publishers Weekly. 'This is a global program, and any author with an English-language short-form...
Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2025 winners announced
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
The Wheeler Centre has announced the winners of the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (VPLAs). Nukgal Wurra author-artist Wanda Gibson has won the overall Victorian Prize for Literature, worth $100,000,...
ABIA 2025 books shortlists announced
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Books+Publishing, in partnership with the Australian Publishers Association, has announced the 2025 book award shortlists for the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). The shortlisted titles in each category are: Audiobook...
Laura Elvery recommends
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Australian Gospel by Lech Blaine – a book that is completely fascinating, heartbreaking, measured and fair. There’s a pace and a clarity in Lech’s writing that is so refreshing.
Macmillan signs Blabey in seven-book deal
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Macmillan has acquired rights to seven new titles from internationally bestselling author Aaron Blabey. The deal, worth eight figures, encompasses seven titles in two new middle-grade series, to be published...
BorrowBox: ‘User experience is everything’
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
In the lead-up to the 2025 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs), Books+Publishing is in conversation with the event's major sponsors about the status of the industry, what excites them about the...
Larrikin House acquires Mather picture book
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Larrikin House has acquired world rights to Otto's INKcredible First Day of School by Rory H Mather, with illustrations by Rebel Challenger. The story follows Otto, an octopus who sprays...
MidnightSun acquires Burge sequel ‘Dirt Trap’
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
MidnightSun has acquired world rights to Dirt Trap by Michael Burge. A sequel to Burge’s rural noir debut, Tank Water, Dirt Trap is set two decades on from the events...
Beer’s ‘Thunderhead’ optioned for film
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Thunderhead (Sophie Beer, A&U) has been optioned by LateNite films, in a film and television deal negotiated by Annabel Barker Agency. Beer’s first middle-grade novel, Thunderhead draws on the author’s own...
Baker wins 2024 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
In the UK, Harriet Baker has won the £10,000 (A$20,365) Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for Rural Hours (Allen Lane), a biography of Virginia Woolf,...
A&U acquires Wallace debut novel ‘Ash’
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired world English (ex NZ) rights to debut novel Ash by Louise Wallace, in a deal brokered by Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary. North American...
Laura Elvery on ‘Nightingale’
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Brisbane-based writer Laura Elvery (Ordinary Matter) makes her novel debut with Nightingale (UQP, May), a fictional reimagining of the life of Florence Nightingale. Books+Publishing reviewer Kate Dunphy describes it as...
Bundyi acquires two Morison novels
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Simon & Schuster imprint Bundyi Publishing has acquired world rights to two novels by Judi Morison. Morison’s debut, Secrets, ‘touches on many of the issues we are still grappling with...
American Library Association condemns ‘White House assault’ on library services agency
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
In the US, the American Library Assocation (ALA), EveryLibrary, ‘and other organisations and individuals have rushed to defend’ the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an organisation the Trump...
Local authors on 2025 British Book Awards shortlists
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Local authors Madeleine Gray, Oliver Jeffers and Sarah A Parker have been shortlisted as part of the 35th British Book Awards (also known as The Nibbies). Works by Gray and...
Text acquires ‘Snake Talk’
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Text Publishing has acquired world rights for Snake Talk: How the World’s Ancient Serpent Stories Can Guide Us by Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher. The publisher describes Snake Talk as an...
QBD Books to open Greensborough store, adds Kepler Analytics technology
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Bookselling chain QBD Books will open a new store at Greensborough Plaza in the northeast of Melbourne on 22 March. The new store will be the first QBD store to...
Loveridge, Stephens launch Perentie Press
Monday, 17 March 2025
Wombat Books founder Rochelle Stephens and teacher and author Bethany Loveridge have announced the establishment of new publishing venture Perentie Press. Loveridge and Stephens said the press will be ‘a...
Woollahra Writers’ Festival, StoryFest announce 2025 programs
Monday, 17 March 2025
The Woollahra Writers’ Festival will run 29–30 March as part of the Woollahra Festival in Sydney. Program curator Nicole Abadee told Books+Publishing the last interviews with writers in the neighbourhood...
Larrikin acquires McDonald picture book
Monday, 17 March 2025
Larrikin House has acquired world English rights to Rainbow Street by RWR McDonald, illustrated by Kelly Canby. The picture book introduces Rainbow Street, ‘where every neighbour is family, every celebration is...
Wynn-Williams blocked from promoting ‘Careless People’
Monday, 17 March 2025
In the US, an emergency arbitrator has ‘temporarily prohibited Meta’s former director of global public policy and author of the memoir Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams, from promoting or further distributing...
Tasmania Reads 2025 events announced
Monday, 17 March 2025
Tasmania Reads will be held in libraries and partner organisations across the state 23–29 March 2025, and will include the launch of a new Writers’ Room at the State Library...
International markets: fiction grows, nonfiction ‘struggles’
Monday, 17 March 2025
In the US, 'fiction sales are growing in global book markets, while nonfiction continues to struggle in most territories', according to a report prepared by GfK Entertainment and NielsenIQ BookData...
Murdoch Books acquires Fashion Critical title
Monday, 17 March 2025
Murdoch Books has acquired world rights to a ‘satirical red-carpet fashion bible’ from anonymous social media influencer and comedian Fashion Critical (FC). ‘Fashion Critical is the brainchild of an anonymous...
A&U acquires Gold’s ‘My Name Is Elli’
Monday, 17 March 2025
Allen & Unwin (A&U) Aotearoa New Zealand has acquired world rights to the historical novel My Name Is Elli from author Doug Gold. Set in wartime Holland, My Name Is...
Auckland Writers Festival announces 2025 program
Monday, 17 March 2025
Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi O Tāmaki has announced its 2025 program, to be held in Tāmaki Makaurau 13–18 May. Close to 50 international participants and more than 170 Aotearoa New...
BookPeople launches 100 best books reading guide
Monday, 17 March 2025
BookPeople has released '100 Best Australian Books of the 21st Century', a reading guide featuring titles selected by member booksellers. The guide, which covers adult fiction and nonfiction categories, is...
Fox’s ‘Fire with Fire’ to be adapted for screen
Monday, 17 March 2025
Candice Fox's 2024 thriller Fire with Fire (Penguin) is being adapted for television by US television studio NBC, reports Deadline. Television writer and producer Wendy Mericle (Arrow, Desperate Housewives) is...
