Auē
Becky Manawatu’s novel Auē recently won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the 2020 Ockham Book Awards. Congratulations to Becky and Mākaro Press on their success. Mākaro is an independent Wellington-based press.
Printed books still preferred
A new report of the Publisher’s Association of New Zealand shows that Kiwis still prefer to read print books. The NZ Publishing Market Size Report shows that in the general book market print book sales increased by 7.1% in 2019 and sales of digital books declined by 4.5%. After lockdown, at level 2, revenue through sale of books in bookstores was up 22% on the same week in 2019, although sales overall are still down on last year.
Copyright law review
Representatives from the New Zealand book industry, including NZSA and the Publishers Association, met with Kris Faafoi (the minister responsible for the Copyright Review) recently to present PANZ’s concerns regarding the direction of the review and the disregarding of artists’ requirements to be paid for their work. The meeting was delayed due to lockdown but was an important one for authors. For more information on copyright review see the PANZ website at www.publishers.org.nz
