[1] Published as a website with daily newsletters and a print magazine, the outlet produces industry news about publishing, bookselling, libraries, rights sales, literary awards and literary festivals, as well as author interviews and pre-publication reviews of Australian and New Zealand books.

Books+Publishing was founded as a magazine in 1921[1][2] by Daniel Wrixon Thorpe as the Australian Stationery and Fancy Goods Journal, at a time when there were few Australian retailers solely focused on the sale of books.

[3] In 1971, the company began publishing the Weekly Book Newsletter—an offshoot of the magazine—containing weekly book-industry news and became colloquially known as the Blue News, because of the blue paper it was printed on.

The word 'Australian' was dropped from the magazine's title at the start of 2006 to become Bookseller+Publisher, partly in acknowledgement of Australia's growing role as a publishing and bookselling hub for the entire Asia-Pacific region.

In 2018, Thorpe-Bowker sold the entire Books+Publishing publication, including the magazine, newsletters and website, to Thorpe-Bowker General Manager Gary Pengelly, under the company Books and Publishing Pty Ltd.[8][3] In 2020, the business decided to postpone publishing the magazine, Think Australian and its book-review newsletters due to COVID-19.