By Think Australian After a decade in print, Sally Rippin’s bestselling Billie B Brown junior fiction series (Hardie Grant Egmont) is finally heading to the screen. Global production company Fremantle and development partner 720 Creative have acquired screen rights to the children’s book character Billie B Brown, describing the brand as having ‘enormous potential for an international screen…

By Think Australian Trent Dalton’s 2018 debut novel Boy Swallows Universe has topped the Nielsen BookScan’s Australian fiction chart for the year to date, having sold more than 80,000 copies in 2020. Literary, historical and crime fiction are all represented in the top 10, including a number of bestsellers from 2019 or earlier—indeed, only two of the…

One of our key Frankfurt initiatives for the online fair put Australian writers and publishers in the spotlight around the world as part of BOOKFEST digital. This is a day-long international festival of books that will stream live on YouTube, Facebook and the Frankfurt Book Fair website on Saturday 17 October. A panel facilitated by Benjamin Law, with authors…

Award-winners among recent rights sales successes Despite the Covid-19 pandemic putting a halt to international travel, a majority of Australian rights managers and literary agents have reported a stable rights market over the past year, with strong demand for audio and screen rights. Here are some of the highlights. Adult fiction sales A major award…

by Andrea Hanke, published in Publishing Perspectives, sponsored by the Australian Publishers Association The case for publishing diverse voices is ‘self-evident’ in Australia, as books on diverse experiences become a bestselling force in the market. A memoir from Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani—who has been detained by the Australian government for over five years after attempting…

by Andrea Hanke, published in Publishing Perspectives, sponsored by the Australian Publishers Association Far from the halls of ivy, Australia’s university presses find favor with readers in search of authoritative information in time of fake news. It’s not unusual to find titles from Australia’s university presses stocked in bookshops across Australia, from independent booksellers to airport chains. Melbourne…

It’s hard to find a theme more urgent in publishing today—and one that unites fiction and nonfiction—than climate change.   Australian independent publisher Black Inc. has been particularly active in publishing books about the environment and climate change—and its titles have been picked up by numerous publishers around the world. ‘Books about the environment—particularly books…

Australia’s leading publisher of books on the visual arts, Thames & Hudson Australia, has been publishing—and exporting—local titles for many years.   ‘We find there is a real thirst for Australian illustrated books in the international market,’ says publisher Kirsten Abbott. ‘Thames & Hudson usually publishes at the higher end of the market, but even…