Overview
Fast facts
International innovations
International collaborations
Industry contacts
Overview
Publishing is a significant creative industry in New Zealand, with strengths in fiction, poetry, art, New Zealand history and biography, and a growing range of titles by and about Maori.
New Zealand authors have garnered international recognition, including fiction writers Lloyd Jones (Booker-shortlisted Mr Pip), Witi Ihimaera (The Whale Rider) and Keri Hulme (Booker prizewinner The Bone People). The domestic and international success of Ian Brodie’s non-fiction Lord of the Rings Location Guide is a good example of the publishing and tourism industries leveraging off each other.
Children’s writing is another major strength, with Margaret Mahy, Lynley Dodd (creator of the ever-popular Hairy Maclary series), Joy Cowley, VM Jones and Sherryl Jordan all successful internationally.
New Zealand is also recognised as a major player in the publishing of quality education resources.
Fast facts
- In 2007, the New Zealand book publishing industry turned over $245 million. Seventy-six percent of turnover was from domestic sales and 24 percent from export sales.
- The industry published 2,394 new New Zealand titles in 2007.
- Professional/technical and education are the biggest publishing categories.
- In 2007, the book publishing industry employed 885 people.
- Small publishers make up a large part of the industry with 57 percent of publishers employing one or less full-time equivalent staff member, and only 21 percent employ more than seven people.
- The industry is growing: 36 percent of publishers say their business is increasing and only 12 percent say it is declining.
- The Frankfurt Book Fair is New Zealand publishers’ main opportunity to showcase New Zealand’s world-class writers and published titles.
International innovations
Learning Media
Learning Media is a leading developer of literacy and comprehension resources for teachers and students and is one of the key suppliers of curriculum materials and professional development resources for the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Its research-based and award winning literacy resources have a global reputation for quality and are represented internationally. Learning Media also offers contract publishing services in concept and content development, design and production, and licensing, as well as professional development services.
Huia Publishers
Huia is an award winning publisher specialising in presenting Maori perspectives within a Pacific and indigenous framework. It publishes and distributes both non-fiction and fiction in New Zealand and internationally (mainly in Australia and the US), as well as a range of educational material in the Maori language. Huia is internationally unique in that it is one of the few independently owned publishers promoting indigenous voices in literature.
Sunshine Books
Sunshine Books, part of the Wendy Pye Group, publishes early learning material for literacy and maths. The group is known worldwide for the development of multimedia material, in particular animated CD-ROMs, which link with a range of printed activity books and little books. Offices and partnerships with the group are found in key countries around the world. In the United States, Sunshine is rebranded as Award Reading.
International collaborations
Gecko Press
Gecko Press specialises in translating and publishing award-winning non-English children's books from around the world for the New Zealand, Australian and global markets. Gecko Press currently has over 30 titles, originally from Sweden, Taiwan and Belgium, as well as New Zealand. They have sold book rights to Australia and the US and translation rights to France and the UK. Gecko Press jointly won the Thorpe-Bowker Award for NZ Publishing with Random House in July 2008, and published the NZ Post Children’s Book of the Year in 2008.
Biozone International
Biozone International specialises in producing student and teacher resources for senior biology in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. Biozone recently signed a cooperation agreement with People’s Education Press, China’s largest educational publisher and a subsidiary of China’s Ministry of Education, which will see an initial run of 100,000 Biozone workbooks adapted for the China market and translated into Chinese. Biozone has also sold the rights to its material for translation and use in Poland and Slovenia.
PQ Blackwell
Publishers of the internationally celebrated M.I.L.K series, PQ Blackwell licenses and publishes books and ancillary products. Leading titles include Mandela: The Authorised Portrait, sold in 14 editions and 11 languages, and Diana: The Portrait, the only authorised book portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales. They have recently collaborated with US photographer Andrew Zuckerman on Wisdom, a photographic book featuring portraits and interviews with fifty-one world-renowned individuals over the age of 65.
Industry contacts
Book Publishers Association of New Zealand
(BPANZ)
BPANZ is the trade association of book publishers and distributors in New Zealand. It protects copyright and promotes trade by its members in domestic and export markets. It organises New Zealand collective stands at international book fairs, market and industry surveys, professional development, and the BPANZ Book Design Awards. It also produces a Book Publishers’ Directory listing all its members.
Booksellers New Zealand
Booksellers New Zealand represents over 90 percent of New Zealand book publishers and booksellers.
New Zealand Book Council
The New Zealand Book Council offers a wide range of activities and programmes designed to promote books and reading by bringing readers, writers, publishers, editors and schools together.
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