Fiction sales Black Inc. has sold world English-language rights (ex ANZ) to One Hundred Days by Alice Pung to HarperCollins imprint HarperVia. Shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, One Hundred Days is Pung’s first novel for adults. Exploring the faultlines between love and control, the novel follows 16-year-old Karuna who falls pregnant and is confined to her 14th-storey…

The Australian book market posted strong results throughout the Covid-affected years of 2020 and 2021, and has continued this growth in 2022, with overall sales for the year to 18 June up 4.1% year-to-year, for a total of A$544 million, according to Nielsen BookData. Coming after two years of consecutive growth in 2020 (up 7.8%)…

If you’re on the ground in Bologna for this year’s fair, pop by the Australian stand, Hall 25, Stand B78. The Australian Publishers Association stand will be managed by Rome-based Australian freelance editor, English-language consultant and former bookseller and publisher Kabita Dhara, and will this year feature 15 Australian publishers. Books from Bologna Prize nominee…

A biography of Australian surfer Owen Wright (world rights acquired by S&S Australia) tells the story of the surfer’s recovery after a serious brain injury ahead of the Pipeline Masters competition in Hawaii: in a single moment, he went from being ranked fifth in the world to having to learn how to walk and talk…

Publisher Rachel Bin Salleh introduces Australia’s leading First Nations press Magabala Books. How and why did Magabala’s children’s division begin its life? Magabala has been publishing children’s pictures books since our beginnings in the 80s. Our children’s poetry book Do Not Go Around the Edges by Daisy Utemorrah was first published in 1991 and is…

Experiences in nature fill many of the picture books on offer from Australian publishers at Bologna this year. Thank you rain! (Sally Morgan & Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr, Magabala Books) is full of the plants and animals that welcome rain: raindrops in the treetops; birds singing in the rain; raindrops wetting the dry earth and filling…

Publisher Anouska Jones introduces health and wellbeing press Exisle Publishing’s children’s imprint EK Books. How and why did Exisle’s children’s imprint EK begin its life? Exisle Publishing began 30 years ago as an independently owned nonfiction publishing company. Over the years, we’ve developed a very strong self-help/health and wellbeing list, and in 2013 we launched…

Memoir and biography  Look out for Ash Barty’s memoir My Dream Time (HarperCollins), which reflects on Barty’s tennis career, her family, and ‘finding the path to being the best I could be, not just as an athlete but as a person’. Hachette is excited to pitch Ellidy Pullin’s memoir Heartstrong, which debuted at number five…