Just back from… John Howard’s Book Launch

One of the perks of my job is attending book launches. For those outside the industry, this is when a recently published book makes it’s debut into the market and into the media. I’ve been to various launches for a big variety of books in America and Australia over the years. Today, I attended the book launch to end all book launches… for former Prime Minister John Howard’s memoir entitled Lazarus Rising (HarperCollins Publishers Australia).

This book launch was a morning tea held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney, and the turnout was huge… as expected. Several hundred attendees including a sizable contingent of press. The atmosphere was a bit ‘White House Press Corps’ meets publishing folk. There were quite a few ‘shoe-throwing’ jokes, thanks to last night’s episode of Q&A when an audience member threw his shoes (I’m told it was both shoes, I missed the show) at the former prime minister.

The launch was kicked off by Michael Moynahan, the CEO of HarperCollins Publishers Australia, who introduced broadcaster Alan Jones who was there to officially launch the book. Jones provided a great summary of Howard’s career and then introduced the author himself.

John Howard gave an interesting speech which included a gracious series of ‘thank yous’ to people who had worked on the book, from his own staff to the HarperCollins team. When the speech concluded, the book selling and book-signing began. From where I stood, the copies of Lazarus Rising were selling like hotcakes!

Now you may be asking, where does Alicia fit into all of this? Good question. I designed the picture section of this book. (For publishing novices; those are the glossy photo pages found within the book’s text) Picture sections are a small part of the book, but according to the ABC journalist I was seated next to, an important one because a reader inevitably turns to those pages first.

Have I mentioned that I just love how journalists can word things?