Plenty of big names from overseas attending the Sydney Writers Festival will also be popping in to Melbourne for appearances at the Wheeler Centre next month. These include Jonathan Franzen, Hanya Yanagihara, William Boyd, Jeanette Winterson, Susie Orbach, Vivian Gornick, Elena Ferrante's translator, Ann Goldstein, and Paula Hawkins. International guests appearing only in Sydney include Julian Barnes, Marlon James, Herman Koch and Kate Tempest. As you could imagine, there is a host of Australian writers appearing in Sydney. swf.org.au; wheelercentre.com

PRH revenues jump

A few weeks ago it was reported that Pearson's profit share from the combined Penguin Random House was up 30 per cent. With co-owner Bertelsmann's results out it can be seen that PRH revenues jumped nearly 12 per cent from €3.3 billion ($4.9 billion) to €3.7 billion thanks largely to favourable exchange rates, savings from the "largely completed" integration of Penguin and Random House after their 2013 merger and bestselling books. Girl on the Train and Grey were particularly strong sellers for the publishing behemoth, with sales of the former at more than 7 million and the latter more than 8 million. Bertelsmann's annual report indicated growth in print book sales in most of its markets, an expansion of digital business across all markets but in the US "sales of e-books fell sharply". At the end of last year, PRH employed more than 10,500 people.

Big call for the Big Issue

The annual Big Issue fiction edition is always something to look forward to. Previous editions have had stories from the likes of Hollywood star James Franco, Christos Tsiolkas, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Michel Faber. Now's your chance to get in on the act. Submit a story between 300 and 3000 words long by May 31 and take your chance with the selection panel. Send two copies of your entry to: Fiction Edition, The Big Issue, GPO Box 4911, Melbourne 3001.

A theft in real life

If you have ever been worried about plagiarism on Amazon, you should read this alarming story in Ireland's Independent newspaper. Eilis O'Hanlon found a book published on Amazon remarkably familiar and investigated. The result was astonishing. tinyurl.com/hlgcwwb

Patterson helps out, again

James Patterson is one of the good guys in publishing. Yes, he's a mega-bestseller but he has been running an almost one-man campaign to support independent bookshops by dishing out grants from his own substantial resources and is now launching a line of short books – BookShots – in an effort to sell books to people who have given up reading for the delights of other forms of entertainment. Patterson and his (many) co-writers are something of a factory, churning out his hugely popular books at a rate that would alarm an aborist but delight publishers and books sellers. Two BookShots, each shorter than 150 pages, a month will start appearing in the US in June and will cost less than $5.