Friday, 24 May 2013
Irish novelist, memoirist, poet and short-story writer Dermot Healy is visiting Australia in May for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. His latest novel Long Time, No See (Faber & Faber) was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and prompted Roddy Doyle to describe Healy as ‘Ireland’s finest living novelist’.
What would you put on a...
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Friday, 24 May 2013
Indian novelist and professor Anita Desai is visiting Australia in May for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Desai is the author of short-story collections and novels for adults and children, three of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, including The Village by the Sea (Puffin), which won the Guardian Children’s Fiction...
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Wednesday, 22 May 2013
For the engaged bookseller, I think the relationship with Australian publishers is quite good. Keeping in touch with publishers via conferences, roadshows, author dinners and office visits (and even facebook and emergency lolcat emails) reaps rewards. As always, there is room for improvement.
Likes:
Samples. Please keep sending us hard-copy samples. We...
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Thursday, 16 May 2013
With the Sydney Writers’ Festival just arond the corner (20-26 May), Books+Publishing spoke to artistic director Jemma Birrell about what visitors can expect from this year’s festival and her personal picks for not-to-be-missed authors.
What do you think will be the highlights of this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival?
Every event will have something...
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Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Pages & Pages general manager Jon Page is stepping down as president of the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) in June. In his final ‘President’s report’ in the ABA’s News on Bookselling, Page says he remains ‘a firm believer that the digital revolution taking place with books is not a threat to...
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Wednesday, 15 May 2013
British writer, journalist and blogger Mark Forsyth is visiting Australia in May for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. His two books about words, The Etymologicon and The Horologicon, are published together as Mark Forsyth’s Gemel Edition (Icon), and his new book The Pinnacle of Parnassus (Icon) is due out in November.
What would...
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Wednesday, 15 May 2013
In Michael Robotham’s If I Tell You I’ll Have to Kill You (A&U) some of Australia’s best crime writers share their advice on writing, researching and reading. Reviewer Shane Strange gave the book four stars, recommending readers look out for the pieces written by Kerry Greenwood, Shane Maloney and Peter Corris....
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Friday, 3 May 2013
Canadian writer Deborah Ellis is visiting Australia in August for the Melbourne Writers Festival’s Schools’ Program. Her latest book, the third in the ‘Parvana’ series, is Parvana’s Promise (A&U), the story of a teenager who is held as a suspected terrorist by American troops in Afghanistan. Ellis donates all royalties from...
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Thursday, 2 May 2013
Reviewer Max Oliver described first-time author Felicity Volk’s book Lightning (Picador) an ‘ambitious, finely written novel’ that tells the story of ‘two outsiders finding each other’. He spoke to the author.
Your publisher is categorising this novel as ‘magic realism’. Was this your intention when writing the book?
I’m not sure...
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Wednesday, 1 May 2013
Reviewer John Purcell credited Inga Simpson’s Mr Wigg (Hachette) with giving him ‘that warm feeling that comes from having read something that has strengthened or even reawakened a sense of what is right and good about the world’. Purcell, who awarded the novel five stars, spoke to the author.
You’ve taken some of the...
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Wednesday, 1 May 2013
In his debut novel Good on Paper (Hunter Publishers), Andrew Morgan has a lot of fun sending up the Australian publishing scene—but he’s keeping his source material close to his chest. Andrea Hanke spoke to the author.
In Good on Paper, a struggling, independent Melbourne publisher decides to re-release a famous literary...
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Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Self-published YA author Darrell Pitt recently signed an eight-book publishing deal with Text. He reflects on his path to publication.
It was a combination of hard work, perseverance and luck that led to my eight-book publishing deal with Text. I’ve always wanted to be a writer but in the words of John...
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Wednesday, 17 April 2013
From 10-12 April, the Society of Editors (WA) was host to the sixth IPEd National Editors Conference in Fremantle. As ever, this was a marvellous opportunity for editors of all types to come together and explore the new challenges and opportunities that are present in our industry.With publishing currently facing such...
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Tuesday, 9 April 2013
In reviewer Carody Culver’s words, Nicole Hayes’ debut YA novel The Whole of My World (Woolshed Press) ‘combines the heady world of AFL with a healthy dose of teenage angst and a subtle exploration of bereavement’. Culver spoke to the author. (Read the review here.)
The Whole of My World is a...
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Tuesday, 9 April 2013
In her review of Fairytales for Wilde Girls (Random House), Bec Kavanagh describes Allyse Near’s literary debut as ‘a cobbled path leading deep into a forest, where the reader is never quite sure what each stone will bring’. Kavanagh gave the YA novel five stars. She spoke to the author.
You count...
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Monday, 8 April 2013
Graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier is a guest of the Centre for Youth Literature’s Reading Matters conference in Melbourne in May. Her autobiographical book Smile (Scholastic) was an international bestseller, and her latest release is Drama, a graphic novel in which schoolgirl Callie is appointed set designer for her school play.
What...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Over the past few weeks the winners of the Indie Awards, the shortlist for the Stella Prize and the longlist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award have all been announced. We asked several booksellers to tell us how they are promoting the awards in their stores—and how customers are responding.
Heather Dyer from Fairfield Books...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafón is visiting Australia and New Zealand in May. His first novel for adults The Shadow of the Wind was an international bestseller, as was its prequel The Angel’s Game (both Text). The third book in the series, The Prisoner of Heaven (Text), will be published in May....
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Alex Adsett highlights new developments in publishing contracts, and where publishers and authors need to be wary.
It has been interesting to watch the changes in the publishing industry playing out in the field of contracts. Some publishers are refusing to deal with these changes, some are overcompensating with draconian author conditions,...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Kate Hendrick’s The Accident (Text, July) alternates between the perspectives of three characters who have lived through tragedy. The author spoke to Meredith Lewin. (Read the review here.)
The Accident was shortlisted for the Text Prize in 2011. Can you tell us when you first started writing this book, and how it came to be...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Author James Vance Marshall and illustrator Francis Firebrace collaborated on More Stories from the Billabong (Walker Books, August). They spoke to Thuy On. (Read the review of More Stories from the Billabong here.)
This is follow-up to your first book; what prompted you to create More Stories from the Billabong?
James Vance Marshall: I wrote a book...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Forthcoming film adaptations of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Melina Marchetta’s On the Jellicoe Road are already attracting pre-production buzz. Andrew Wrathall spoke to the authors.
‘Had someone told me ten years ago that Geoffrey Rush would act in a film based on a book I’d written, I’d have laughed at...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Lyn White is the editor of ‘Through My Eyes’, a new fiction series for readers aged 11-14 that explores war through the eyes of children. She spoke to Meredith Lewin.
This character-driven fiction series about children living in contemporary war zones fills a much-needed gap in the market. Can you tell us...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Libba Bray is a guest of the Centre for Youth Literature’s Reading Matters conference in Melbourne in May. Her latest book is The Diviners (A&U).
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
‘Many people have gone on to live perfectly normal lives after reading this woman’s books. Don’t be afraid.’
What is...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
We’re starting to get into convention and expo season, which makes it a good time to be looking at the state of sci-fi and fantasy sections.
ID: The Second Machine Dynasty by Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot, June) is the second book in a sci-fi thriller series that explores a future world through...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
As MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules continue to dominate on TV, imagine a future where chefs rule the town like crime lords and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurants. American chef and author Anthony Bourdain has written just such a bloody culinary tale in Get Jiro!, which...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Will the decade we’re living in be known as the digital age? Only time will tell and, in the meantime, there’s a good range of business books to guide our thinking. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, and Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, have co-written The Digital Age (Hodder & Stoughton,...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
In Max Barry’s action-packed Lexicon (Mulholland, July), only one man survives a deadly attack on Broken Hill. The author spoke to Angela Meyer. (Read the review of Lexicon here.)
Lexicon’s strong central concept is that words can, literally, be used as weapons. Did it take a while to plan and build the world of the...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
One year ago Chris Saliba and his partner, longtime bookseller Chris Hubbard, opened North Melbourne Books. Its bold red walls, generous supply of literary classics and cosy children’s section have been welcomed by the North Melbourne community. Saliba shares his bookseller’s diary.
‘You must be brave!’ That’s what everyone exclaimed when we told them...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Andrea Hanke’s editor’s picks include a time-travelling serial killer and a modern-day divided Berlin.
Going Deutsch
Two German novels recently translated into English look promising, and make it easier to put off that New Year’s resolution to read more books auf Deutsch. The first is Eugen Ruge’s In Times of Fading Light (Faber,...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
In 2011 Embiggen Books owner Warren Bonett decided to relocate his store from Noosaville to Melbourne. His latest project, which is being run in conjunction with the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA), is to create a mini guide to promote the city’s booksellers.
Bonett, who used to work as a book designer in...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Several Brisbane booksellers have also shown their collaborative side by participating in a recent flash fiction napkin project. Launched on Valentine’s Day, the project saw napkins bearing 300-word micro stories distributed in various bookstores and cafes across the city. The stories, on the subject of finding or losing love, were penned...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
As a regular commentator on TV programs such as ABC’s Gruen Planet and the Drum, Channel 9’s Mornings and Channel 7’s Weekend Sunrise, Jane Caro has made a career out of her opinions. The advertising writer, author and keynote speaker for this year’s ABA conference spoke to Andrea Hanke.
With four books published—two...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
How do you determine the price of your ebooks and do you ever run promotional discounts? Books+Publishing asked three publishers.
...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
American author Hugh Howey is visiting Australia in April. His latest book is Shift (Century), the prequel to Wool.
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
‘Help! Don’t let them send me back!’
What is the silliest question you’ve ever been asked on a book tour?
At my very first book signing a woman asked...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Last year, Ruth Jelley interviewed several Australian fiction publishers—one large multinational, one medium-sized independent and one small independent—about their digital publishing programs. In this edited extract from her master’s thesis, Jelley explores some of the issues surrounding ebook pricing and marketing.
Pricing in the ebook market is volatile and more vulnerable to...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
In Holy Bible (Sleepers, July), Vanessa Russell takes a look at family life in a religious sect. The author spoke to Katie Haydon.
It is said to write what you know, and although Holy Bible is a work of fiction, I note you used to read the Bible once a year. Did you...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
What inspires a British academic to stage a zombie siege in a rural Aussie library or teach teens how to con their way into a million dollars? Community outreach consultant Matt Finch tells Books+Publishing about his work in Australian schools and libraries over the past year.
Back in the day I was...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
A lot of planning goes into writing a children’s book series—and bringing it to an end. Kate Blackwood spoke to the authors of several well-known series.
What makes an author decide to call it a day on a popular children’s book series? According to Petra James, the ‘Arkie Sparkle: Treasure Hunter’...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Over the past year, Australian publishers have enjoyed a significant boost in sales for romance fiction, mostly fuelled by erotic fiction. But how long will the trend last? And what will it leave behind? Andrea Hanke reports.Nielsen BookScan’s romance bestseller charts tell an interesting story. In the six months prior to...
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Friday, 5 April 2013
Baking, gardening and craft books will be sharing shelf space with rural romance and suspenseful fiction, predicts Kate Blackwood of this year’s Mother’s Day haul.
Food
For those who like their cooking rustic, the Australian Women’s Weekly’s Farm House Cooking (Bauer Media Books, May) includes meals that ‘capture the essence of country hospitality’,...
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Thursday, 4 April 2013
Reviewer Jennifer Peterson-Ward describes Kirsten Krauth’s new novel just_a_girl (UWA Publishing, June) as ‘an ambitious exploration of the strange ways that people have of expressing love’. The author spoke with Peterson-Ward, whose review is available here.
just_a_girl tackles some topical issues, such as underage sex and digital communication. Was it at...
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Thursday, 4 April 2013
John Harwood has written a spine-tingling gothic thriller in The Asylum (Vintage, June). The author spoke to Paula Grunseit, whose review is available here.
When did you first fall in love with horror stories and gothic novels? What are some of your favourites?
It goes all the way back to my childhood in...
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Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Andrew Kelly, publisher of Wild Dog Books, reports from the Australia-China Publishing Forum.
Representatives from eight Australian publishers—Jane Covernton, Working Title Press; Victoria Field, The Five Mile Press; Cate Sutherland, Fremantle Press; Charlotte Bodman, Hardie Grant Egmont; Anne Beilby, Text Publishing; Richard Liu, Era Publications; Libby O’Donnell, HarperCollins; and myself—attended this year’s...
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Thursday, 21 March 2013
Reviewer Gerard Elson describes Amanda Curtin’s new novel Elemental (UWA Publishing, May) as a ‘fruitful fascination with memory, history and the generational legacies of family’. The author spoke with Elson, whose review is available here.
This is the second novel you’ve set in Scotland, following The Sinkings. What attracted you to this...
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Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Zoe Dattner recently returned from the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference in New York. Below she shares some of her highlights, including an ‘aha’ moment on POD.
Thanks to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, I had the opportunity to visit the O’Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) Conference in New York recently. For...
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Friday, 1 March 2013
Keith Gray is a guest of the Centre for Youth Literature’s Reading Matters conference in Melbourne in May. He recently edited a collection of YA short stories about the afterlife called Next (Random House).
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
‘There are two types of people in the...
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013
In The Good Life, social researcher and novelist Hugh Mackay asks the big question: what makes life worth living? Paula Grunseit spoke to the author. You can read her review online here.
In The Good Life you discuss the Utopia complex—a belief system that expects and demands perfection in all areas of...
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Tuesday, 26 February 2013
A decline in Australian newspapers’ literary pages and an increase in review-sharing between Fairfax’s mastheads the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times have significantly reduced the number and diversity of book reviews in the Australian print media. The impact on new authors, literary fiction and scholarly nonfiction is...
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Friday, 22 February 2013
While Loani Prior's latest book How Tea Cosies Changed the World (Murdoch) has attracted the attention of the Diagram Prize for its delightfully odd title, back in 2010 Andrew Wrathall investigated an odd tea cosy craze hitting bookshops ...
One of the more unusual in-store events of recent months [during Winter 2010] has...
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Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Ashley Hay’s second novel, after The Body in the Clouds, follows the lives of several characters in a NSW coastal town, including a doctor returned from the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, a former soldier who can no longer find the words for his poetry, and a librarian who matches...
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Tuesday, 19 February 2013
UK journalist and author Anne de Courcy is travelling to the Perth Writers Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week in February and March. Her latest book is The Fishing Fleet: Husband-Hunting in the Raj (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), the true story of the young English women who travelled to the Indian subcontinent in...
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Monday, 18 February 2013
British novelist and historian Tom Holland is travelling to the Perth Writers Festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week, Canberra and Sydney in February and March. His latest book is In the Shadow of the Sword (Little, Brown).
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
‘Where did Islam really come from? A dramatic, dazzling...
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Friday, 8 February 2013
Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites (Picador, May) plunges the reader into the remotest corner of 19th-century Iceland in her story of the last woman to be beheaded in that country. Andrea Hanke spoke to the author. Read Hanke’s review here.
In the acknowledgements you write that Burial Rites is a ‘dark love letter...
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Tuesday, 5 February 2013
With a number of children’s bookstores now selling online, Portia Lindsay asks several booksellers what works best on the web.
Buying a children’s book is often a personal and a tactile experience, and customers want advice from booksellers they can trust. Increasingly, the service offered by specialised children’s booksellers is branching out...
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Monday, 4 February 2013
In his new book Once Upon a Slime: 45 Fun Ways to Get Writing … Fast! (Pan Macmillan, April) Andy Griffiths gives advice to inspire young writers. The author spoke to Meredith Lewin. You can read Lewin’s review of Once Upon a Slime here.
Once Upon a Slime encourages writers to...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Julie Hunt has created a thrilling tale of life on the run in Song for a Scarlet Runner (A&U, April). The author spoke to Jarrah Moore. You can read Moore’s review of Song for a Scarlet Runner here.
Stories are very important in the book, and Peat is a natural storyteller. Do you think...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
‘Just One Day is a Trojan Horse novel. It trots up to you as a love story between a straight-laced American girl and a laidback Dutch guy who meet in England and hop over to Paris for a day of romance, but...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Do you prefer to receive digital or printed proofs? Books+Publishing asked four booksellers.
...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
In her second memoir, Anna Goldsworthy explores her experience of motherhood, including an irrational fear of losing her newborn down a composting toilet. Joanne Shiells spoke to the author.
What made you want to share your experience of parenthood with the world?
I began by just keeping a record for myself. It’s a...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Marion Roberts and Kim Kane collaborated on the YA thriller Cry Blue Murder (UQP, May). They spoke to Meredith Lewin.
Cry Blue Murder is a contemporary YA thriller that comes in the wake of several highly publicised real-life crimes involving social media. Without giving too much away, was this intended as a...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
From a Pride and Prejudice-inspired picture book set in an Australian farmyard to a YA thriller that explores the dangers of online communication, publishers tell us their top children’s and YA picks for 2013.
PICTURE BOOKS
‘A dog and a chook playing out the theme of Pride and Prejudice in an Australian farmyard’ is...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Why are there so few YA books with Indigenous characters, asks Danielle Binks.
Last year I read two wonderful Australian YA books, written by Indigenous authors and featuring Aboriginal protagonists. Grace Beside Me by Sue McPherson (Magabala Books), set in the year of Kevin Rudd’s ‘Sorry’, is a coming-of-age story about Fuzzy...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Dark Serpent (HarperVoyager, May) is the first book in Kylie Chan’s ‘Celestial Battle’ trilogy, which combines martial arts and magic, and the seventh book in an ongoing story that began with White Tiger. Stefen Brazulaitis spoke to the author. Read Brazulaitis’ review here.
Your books contain a mix of ethnicities, sexualities, gender...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
After its premises and all of its stock were destroyed in the February 2011 earthquake, the Children’s Bookshop in Christchurch has rebuilt outside of the city centre, and flourished. Owner Sheila Sinclair shares her bookseller’s diary.
How many bookshops have survived three major earthquakes!
The Children’s Bookshop was established in Christchurch in 1976....
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Most Australian writers’ festivals offer some children’s events, usually as part of a discrete schools’ program. Kate Blackwood spoke to several festival programmers to get their thoughts on running events for younger readers.
From all accounts, putting together a children’s program for a writers’ festival is no easy task. There are a...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
The Centre for Youth Literature’s Adele Walsh travelled to YALSA’s YA Lit Symposium in Missouri and YALLFest in South Carolina last year with the hope of picking up some ideas for local programming. She reports on her experience.
In 2012 I travelled to the US in the hope of seeing young adult literature...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
In her second novel, Cory Taylor worked hard to capture the voice of her protagonist, a young soldier infatuated with a Japanese youth in an internment camp in regional Victoria during World War II. She spoke to Portia Lindsay.
You have said of the writing process for Me and Mr Booker that...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Anne Beilby has been rights manager at Text Publishing since the days when pitch letters were sent by fax. She shares her career journey.
I studied anthropology, literature and languages at uni and while studying I worked in a couple of bookshops. I loved it. After I finished uni, I went overseas...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Lauren Beukes is travelling to Australia in May. Her latest book is The Shining Girls (HarperCollins).
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
A time-travelling serial killer is unstoppable until one of his victims survives and turns the hunt around. It’s a book about obsessions and choices, the way the 20th century...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
In September and October 2012, Bowker Market Research conducted its second Global eBook Monitor survey, repeating its January 2012 survey in Australia, India, the UK and the US, and adding in New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Key findings from the first survey were reported in the June/July 2012 edition of...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Notions Unlimited Bookshop in the beachside suburb of Chelsea, Victoria, has recently created three YouTube videos to promote its store and reach out to members of its local community. One video is about the opening of the science-fiction, fantasy and horror store in early 2012, another video shows how the store...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Now that ebooks have established themselves in the market, are they changing the way designers work? Drew Turney reports.
One of the more ambitious ebook projects of the past year has been HarperCollins’ Cranium Universe. Launched in September 2012, it showcases the work of poet, writer, musician and artist Reg Mombassa through a...
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Friday, 1 February 2013
Publishers regularly extol the virtues of print-on-demand (POD) and short-run digital printing. Eloise Keating asked several publishers to share recent examples of their benefits.
Black Inc.’s US choice for POD
At the Independent Publishers Conference in Melbourne in November 2012, Black Inc. publisher Sophy Williams shared in interesting example of POD in action—in...
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Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Melissa Lucashenko’s novel Mullumbimby (UQP) is the story of one woman’s attempt to build a new life in country Australia. Reviewer Max Oliver describes it as ‘a modern tale of the clash between cultures, of the importance of belonging, and, surprisingly, of the pitfalls of making assumptions about other people and...
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Wednesday, 30 January 2013
In January 2013, PwC published a report called ‘Demystifying the online shopper: 10 myths of multichannel retailing’, based on its annual global survey of online shoppers. In 2012 this survey included the US, UK, China, Switzerland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Turkey (but not Australia).
Based on data collected...
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Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Described as a compelling page-turner that is also ‘a little grisly’, Robert Gott’s novel The Holiday Murders (Scribe) follows a 1943 homicide investigation through the streets of Melbourne. The author spoke to Pip Newling. You can read Newling’s review of The Holiday Murders here.
The Holiday Murders is a crime novel that...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
While most Australians travel to Frankfurt in search of rights deals, there’s a lot more to Frankfurt than back-to-back half-hour meetings, reports Andrew Wilkins.
1. Join the Academy
Frankfurt is becoming the professional development event par excellence. The once-disparate array of industry conferences and meetings that take place alongside and before the fair...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
From supergrains to creative seeds, Shannon Wood rounds up forthcoming titles in the mind-body-spirit genre.
Shape up
While weight-loss titles are popular all year round, summer is the peak time for people trying to get into shape. If you’re the kind of dieter whose good intentions rarely last more than a couple of...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
It’s a small and often overlooked part of the book market, but audiobooks are showing no signs of decline. Andrew Wrathall spoke to Bolinda CEO Rebecca Herrmann about the company’s recent developments, including ‘print-on-demand’ audiobooks and ebook distribution into libraries.
‘It’s not slowing down’ is the message from Bolinda CEO Rebecca Herrmann....
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
The population of Aireys Inlet may be small in winter, but there’s plenty to keep bookseller Nicole Maher busy throughout the year. The owner of Great Escape Books and co-organiser of the Lighthouse Literary Fest shares her bookseller’s diary.
Aireys Inlet, a tiny coastal hamlet that you pass in the blink...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
With the right preparation, author events can be a win-win for booksellers and publishers. Eloise Keating asked Text Publishing publicity manager Jane Novak and Hardie Grant Egmont publicity manager Jennifer Kean about organising successful bookshop events.
Be proactive
Traditionally the first port of call for booksellers seeking to organise events with publishers was...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
Andrea Hanke kicks off another reading year with new fiction from Kate Atkinson and Karen Russell, true stories of shopping and online dating, and some standout YA.
Life after Jackson Brodie
I’ve heard only good things about Kate Atkinson’s new novel, so I’m going to overlook the fact that it doesn’t include one...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
In 2012 it might have been overshadowed by erotic fiction, but there’s certainly no drought in rural romance. In January, Loretta Hill follows up her popular debut The Girl in the Steel-Capped Boots with another story of a woman finding her way—and a nice fella, hopefully—in the outback. This time it’s...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
In picture books, Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury, January) is a playful comedy of errors by a consistently surprising author. And Adam Rex’s bold, colourful illustrations only heighten the fun. Penguins Can’t Fly by Richard Byrne (Koala Books, February) is a tender reminder that it’s okay to be different, and...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
Bolinda’s forthcoming audiobook releases include, in nonfiction, The Great Race by David Hill (read by Paul English, February), a thrilling historical account of the race between the English and the French to complete the map of Australia; and Not Your Ordinary Housewife by Nikki Stern (February), the true story of a...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
A murdered girl washed up on a Tassie beach, and its impact on a small community, are the subjects of Poppy Gee’s debut novel. She spoke to Catherine Schulz.
Given Tasmania’s close-knit community, how careful did you choose to be in your depictions of people and places that are less than flattering?
I...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
Karen Foxlee suffered from severe ‘second novel syndrome’ while working on her suspenseful drama The Midnight Dress. She spoke to Melanie Barton.
How did it feel to work on your second novel after winning several awards for The Anatomy of Wings?
After The Anatomy of Wings was published and I’d won a few...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
In 2011 ‘binge-drinking health reporter’ Jill Stark decided to take a break from alcohol, and write a book about it. She spoke to Paula Grunseit.
What place has alcohol had in your life since finishing the challenge and writing this book?
I still enjoy alcohol but I’m much more mindful of how much...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
Publishing student Bridget Morales has surveyed over 50 independent booksellers in regional Australia to find out how they are faring at a time when online bookstores and ereaders are increasingly popular.
The remoteness of regional independent bookstores from capital cities has traditionally been one of the sector’s strongest business advantages. But now...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
What does a sales rep for a digital-only publisher do all day? We spoke to Anne Treasure, digital marketing executive at Momentum.
What was your original job description? Has it changed since you began?
When Tom Gilliatt (Pan Macmillan Australia’s nonfiction director, who created Momentum) and Joel Naoum (Momentum publisher) first started talking...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your book?
‘A portrait of a soldier in Iraq.’ You can see that self-promotion does not come naturally to me.
What is the silliest question you’ve ever been asked on a book tour?
I haven’t had any silly questions that I can think of, probably due to...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
Local fiction
Richard Flanagan’s first novel in five years is Random House publishing director Nikki Christer’s pick for 2013. She describes The Narrow Road to the Deep North (August) as ‘a major novel of love and war, spanning World War II to the present day’. Christer’s colleague, publisher Beverley Cousins, is looking...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
Hardie Grant Books sales rep Mandy Wildsmith has spent 18 years on the road in Victoria and Tasmania. She shares five days from her diary.
MONDAY
The alarm screams although it’s pitch black outside. I have to be in Lorne by 10am so I get cracking. I have it down pat. Carlton to...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
The newly launched My Identifiers platform will help publishers manage
their ISBNs and market their books, reports Eloise Keating.
Thorpe-Bowker has officially launched the My Identifiers platform—a new website for the Australian ISBN Agency.
My Identifiers is a website developed by Thorpe-Bowker parent company R R Bowker (owner of Bookseller+Publisher) which allows authors and...
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Thursday, 13 December 2012
What are the potential implications of a merger between Penguin and Random House for the business models of small, independent publishers? Bookseller+Publisher spoke to three publishers.
Henry Rosenbloom, publisher, Scribe
Independent publishers will view these developments with some anxiety. It will make it even harder for them to acquire good books at reasonable...
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Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Simon & Schuster UK chief executive and managing director Ian Chapman visited Australia in November to help celebrate Simon & Schuster Australia’s 25th anniversary. He spoke to Eloise Keating.
You’re out in Australia to do some work on the local Simon & Schuster list. Are there any plans to do more publishing...
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Friday, 7 December 2012
A pop-up retail store selling books and gifts about Melbourne has returned to the city’s CBD.
Melbournalia is the brainchild of Dale Campisi and Michael Brady from boutique publisher Arcade Publications. Initially launched in November 2011 as a series of five pop-up retail stores, Melbournalia has found a new home this...
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Thursday, 6 December 2012
The 'best books of the year' lists have become a book industry tradition in the lead-up to Christmas, and this year is no exception. Below we round-up some of the local and international offerings from booksellers and the press.
From local booksellers:
Readings in Melbourne has compiled lists for the year's best fiction, crime fiction, nonfiction, food and wine...
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Wednesday, 5 December 2012
US-based Australian literary agent Virginia Lloyd recently travelled to Australia to meet with some of the major trade publishers. Below she summarises what Australian publishers are looking for, based on her meetings:
In a word, nonfiction. Nonfiction sells more books, and publishers want to...
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