In May 2012 Kirstie Clements was sacked after more than a decade in the editor’s chair at Vogue Australia. In her book The Vogue Factor (and this edition of Lunchbox/Soapbox) Clements tells the…
Monday mornings can be tough. If you’re suffering Mondayitis and could use a little pick-me-up, take time out to browse these particularly good-looking book covers we’ve sourced from around the…
We’ve been talking to tech-savvy writers and publishers this week, finding out how they navigate the brave new world of promoting books online.Today, we share some dos and don’t for writers, from
With the rise of e-publishing, online bookstores and social media, mastering the web has become increasingly important for authors and publishers when it comes to selling books. But how do they…
Most of the news we hear about publishing these days is pretty grim, to say the least … it’s all about bookshops closing, sales plummeting and jobs being lost. So, it’s especially nice to hear the…
We bring you our favourite findings from around the internet this week.Using the internet to market books in AustraliaCrikey’s Amber Jamieson has interviewed digital marketing staff at a number of…
Comic literary novelist Gary Shteyngart is almost as well known for his prolific blurbing of his fellow authors' work as he is for his critically acclaimed books, Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love…
It’s a whole new year in publishing and reading – and if you’re already making up your ‘to read’ list, we can help. A plethora of publications have just published their lists of books to look out…
Karen Andrews is program manager of the Emerging Writers' Festival. She is also an author and publisher at Miscellaneous Press, with two books under her belt – the picture book Surprise! and most…
By Tim Coronel Tim Coronel, former publisher of Bookseller and Publisher magazine, looks at the dramatic changes in ways of doing business over the past five years in the Australian book trade – and…
Five years ago, the tone of discussion about the book industry shifted from ‘confidence’ to ‘crisis’, as online shopping and the emergence of e-books shook up the established ways of doing business.I…
Five years ago, the tone of discussion about the book industry shifted from ‘confidence’ to ‘crisis’, as online shopping and the emergence of e-books shook up the established ways of doing business.I…
by Karen Pickering Freelance writer and editor Karen Pickering had a ‘learning experience’ recently when she was commissioned to write a piece for a national publication – then wasn’t paid for it…
Former The Lifted Brow editor Ronnie Scott is also contributor to The Believer, Lucky Peach, Meanjin, the Big Issue, Australian Book Review and ABC Radio. He is currently a Hot Desk Fellow here at…
Jordan Bass is the managing editor of McSweeney’s. He’s in Melbourne this week for two events with the Wheeler Centre, including tonight’s launch of McSweeney’s 41, a special Australian Aboriginal…
If you look up ‘literary hipster’ in the dictionary, you just might find a picture of McSweeney’s, the San Francisco-based publishing company started by rule-bending writer Dave Eggers.Jordan Bass…
Chris Flynn is the books editor of the Big Issue and published his debut novel, A Tiger in Eden, this year. He was also guest editor for McSweeney’s 41, the Australian Aboriginal fiction edition…
The Fifth Estate is the Wheeler Centre’s new series of fortnightly forums: a more measured approach to news and current affairs. Provocative and studied, authoritative and unhurried, this is real…
In the midst of the general gloom and doom about the state of the worldwide publishing industry, it’s a welcome relief to celebrate some good news.Burial Rites, the debut novel from 27-year-old…
What is the future for media in Australia? How can newspapers adapt and survive in the digital age? And what is the role of the national broadcaster in a rapidly changing media landscape? As Gina…
Join W.H. Chong for the first in an occasional series on the art and artistry of book design, be it traditional dust-jackets or futuristic visions of books of the future. Publisher’s brief: ‘Here…
We don’t exactly judge a book by its cover here at the Wheeler Centre … but we do appreciate a good-looking book cover, nonetheless.The Australian Publishers' Association celebrates the best in…
Source: Abu Dhabi International Book Fair
Emerging Writers' Festival director Lisa Dempster has, in recent years, become a regular at Arab book fairs…
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Australian Writers’ Guild, David Williamson AO – president of the AWG and acclaimed playwright and screenwriter – presents a major State of the Industry…
Novelist Alex Miller and historian Jim Davidson mark the first anniversary of the untimely passing of their friend Hazel Rowley. In the space of just four books, Rowley established herself as one of …
We share five of our favourite links to news, reviews or articles that we’ve discovered over the past week.Cooking with Poo and the Great Singapore Penis PanicThe whimsical Diagram Prize for Oddest B…
Chris Flynn writes about the weirdness of becoming an author. Especially when you’ve been making your living as a reviewer – and now it’s your turn to be reviewed.It’s fairly odd being a debut…
Working with Words is a new Wheeler Centre web series, where we’ll talk to writers and publishing folk about their work and other bookish things. We kick off with Hilary McPhee, one of Australian…
Ewan Morrison is famous for last year’s bleak Edinburgh Festival address diagnosing the publishing industry as in ‘terminal decline’.Yesterday he tapped into the zeitgeist again, with a Guardian
Earlier this week, we tweeted the news that Penguin’s general publishing department is now accepting unsolicited manuscripts, in a new initiative titled, ‘The Monthly Catch’. Submissions are…
In a nice departure from the traditional Australia Day focus on flags and sporting heroes, The Sunday Age has marked the lead-up to the occasion with an editorial decrying our ‘tendency to…
As 2011 ends and 2012 begins, we’ve invited our resident organisations to consider the year gone by and to share their plans for the year to come.2011 was a huge year for SPUNC – it was the year in w…
While citizens took to the streets to protest around the world, there were other upheavals in 2011: not least in the world of publishing. As digital publishing consolidated its grip on the…
A leading Australian book retailer is getting into the publishing business with the launch of an online self-publishing service. Dymocks is the first major Australian book retailer to have entered…
A new UK publishing venture is bringing crowdfunding to the book world. Unbound lets authors pitch their novels-in-progress to readers, who then decide whether or not they want to contribute to the f…
In the online world, science fiction and fantasy, thrillers and romance rule supreme. Much-maligned genre fiction is seemingly better placed to survive in the new world order than prestigious…
Family and friends are gathering this morning to mourn the loss of Diana Gribble AM, one of the pre-eminent figures in the local and national publishing industry over recent decades. …
An Australian writer is seeking to become a pioneer of digital publishing with a venture that’s making the most of new publishing technologies. Nathan Farrugia has an ambitious project in mind – in f…
Pioneering publications are giving us a glimpse of what the book of the future might look like – and that future can best be summarised as augmentation.1. The Hybrid BookIn the US, the New York…
For several years, publisher Allen & Unwin has accepted manuscript pitches from aspiring writers every Friday with a service it aptly called the Friday Pitch. Now Pan Macmillan has inaugurated its…
Sophie Marozeau is a French journalist based in Melbourne. She is the founder of Emue Books, an innovative publishing house which promotes French books around the world. Emue books are available in…
The digital publishing revolution has led to an exponential rise in the amount of words published – and mistakes made. A BBC report published last week claims bad spelling online can hurt revenue…
The web, we are endlessly told, offers unparalleled opportunity for a democratic voice. But is the voice of the people necessarily offered for free? Why is it so hard to earn a buck through a blog?In…
Our symphonies to Penguin Australia, who have had to pulp a cookbook because of a proofing oversight let a racially offensive term make it into print. The pulping of 7000 unsold copies of The Pasta…
We were saddened to learn that Reader’s Feast, on Swanston Street in Melbourne’s CBD, is closing. The 22 staff losing their jobs will bring the total amount of jobs lost by REDgroup’s insolvency to 1…
An opinion piece by Eric Felten published on the weekend in the Wall Street Journal has served as a reminder of the crucial role publishers play as a filter. Entitled ‘Cherish the Book Publishers &ndash…
Amazon has announced that it will be buying out online UK bookseller Book Depository. The move will give Amazon a virtual monopoly of online sales of print books in many countries. Founded in 2004,
There’s a new Australian publisher in town. Congratulations to Spineless Wonders, who have just published their first book, Julie Chevalier’s Permission to Lie. Why ‘spineless’? According to the…
While we’ve covered the epublishing revolution many times, it feels ironic that Australia’s tyranny of distance nowadays seems to apply mainly to technologies that are designed to make the world…
Online book retailers Amazon and Waterstone’s have both announced that ebooks are outselling print books. Amazon ebooks for its Kindle device are selling more than all hardbacks and paperbacks…
Irrepressible US author, entrepreneur and commentator on the arts of spin, Seth Godin, has built a career on overturning the conventional wisdom on a host of subjects related to business, marketing a…
We ♥ Books
Dailies · Fri, 20 May 2011
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the book’s death have been greatly exaggerated.With all the news about of bookstores closing and Amazon swallowing every competitor in sight, we thought we’d…
In this video, Mandy Brett takes to Lunchbox/Soapbox to consider the future for those whom we notice least when they’re most effective: editors.Holding a Kindle, an iPad and a smartphone, Brett…
Image via WikiCommons
Unlike magazines, books have somehow always avoided the encroachment of advertising. They’ve even managed to successfully resist product placement –
Ex-libris by József Faragó [1866-1906] via WikiCommons
To most book-lovers, the ex-libris, or bookplate, is a cherished relic of the past. Bookplates were small labels…
(Click to watch video.)
It was standing room only at our recent Meanland event on future directions for books and bookshops. Chaired by incoming Meanjin
Amanda Hocking, author of paranormal romance young adult fiction, has earned her place in publishing history. Last week, Amazon made a $2 million bid to publish a four-book series by the 26 year-old …
Publishing group The Thousands is running an online program “that recognises and rewards local achievements”. Nominees for the Thousands Awards have been published, and though the nominees for the…
The print-on-demand options for Australian small publishers and authors looking to self-publish are set to broaden from the middle of the year. Print-on-demand specialist Lightning Source has…
As sales of print books drop and publishers tighten their belts, good news stories in the world of books remind us that hard work, a good idea, an ear for genre and a stroke of blind luck can still w…
A Federal Court judge in New York has rejected an agreement between Google, publishers and a group of about 40 libraries. Google has been digitising books in these libraries – which include Stanford …
Opponents of a decision by Fairfax Media to outsource its subediting from 2012, and thus make redundant its subeditors, will take to the streets at lunchtime today. The publisher of The Age and The…
On 1 March, EU inspectors conducted raids in the offices of publishers across Europe. The EU explained the raids were motivated by concerns that ebook publishers “violate EU anti-trust rules that…
As if it were a mystery lifted straight out of the pages of a mystery novel comes… a mystery lifted literally out of the pages of a mystery novel. The New York Post has reported on the appearance of …
Tomorrow is World Book Night in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Billed as “the most ambitious and far-reaching celebration of adult books and reading ever attempted in the UK and Ireland”, the event …
In Plan 9 From Outer Space, Ed Wood droned, “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” This weekend, the 5th annual Golden Plains
(Click to watch video.)
A novel manuscript entitled ‘The Hanging Garden’, unfinished at the time of its author Patrick White’s death, is set to be…
One of our biggest themes here at Wheeler Centre Dailies in recent times has been the future of the book. JE Fishman at The Nervous Breakdown has given readers his take on the topic – and Fishman’s f…
The emergence of WikiLeaks has had a profound (if polarising) effect on our relationship to information. Whether it’s politicians or the media, the question of secrecy and disclosure has been…
“Brooklyn is repulsive with novelists, it’s cancerous with novelists.” So opined acclaimed novelist Jonathan Lethem in a profile in the LA Times this weekend. The comment has raised eyebrows – in…
Image courtesy WikiCommons
News of the Australian publishing industry doesn’t usually make the front page of major newspapers unless the news is bad. So it was yesterday…
The McSweeney’s empire continues to grow apace. Last week, Dave Eggers and co announced the launch of two new imprints under the McSweeney’s umbrella. The Bay-Citizen reports that “chef David Chang
Here’s a story that will interest anyone who’s ever had to sum up their lives in a few pithy words. It’s about ‘About the Authors’, that section at the front or end of a magazine, journal or…
Our theme this week in the Dailies has been the rapidly changing landscape of the publishing industry (here and here). Today we present a sample of the content pinging around the dubya-dubya-dubya…
