Writers on Writing is our regular conversation with a writer or industry professional about the writing craft, industry insights, and their own practice. This week, we spoke to Sunil Badami about his favourite memories from book launches, why book launches matter, and the secrets to advertising and planning your launch.

What are some of your favourite memories from book launches?

It’s always fabulous meeting your writing heroes and I’ve been lucky to meet many of mine: Helen Garner, Kate Grenville, Alexander McCall Smith, David Marr, Lech Blaine, and more. I’ve enjoyed some fabulous conversations and discussions and met some very interesting people with fascinating stories to share.

But my favourite memories are of debut, emerging or self-published authors who are overwhelmed by the love they receive on the night from friends and family. It’s wonderful helping them overcome their nerves to bring their story into the world.

And it’s always lovely receiving kind and gracious feedback from authors and publishers thanking me and telling me how much they enjoyed the night – it always makes my day!

Why should you have a book launch?

Writing is a solitary pursuit, full of doubt — what the successful and prolific author Georges Simenon called ‘a vocation of disappointment.’ It’s hard to turn up and write, to finish your book, and it’s an incredible achievement to get it published.

Many writers think that a book launch is a sales event. But even if you fill a 100-seat venue, you won’t sell your entire print run.

Many also assume that it’s a publicity opportunity, and that if the blurb is catchy enough, the public will come along. But you’re competing with a lot of other events every night, and while people may be interested in a book’s subject or an author they know, most of the people who come to your book launch will be people you know. Even best-selling authors often fill the room with their friends and family.

So a book launch isn’t so much a sales event or publicity opportunity as a commemoration of your hard work and achievement as an opportunity to celebrate with friends and family, to show them what you’ve done, and hopefully sell a few books too.

You wouldn’t consider the “return on investment” on your birthday party or wedding –  it’s a wonderful moment to acknowledge this important milestone, and to make as many lovely memories as possible.

What advice would you give someone considering a book launch?

Make sure you know why you’re having a launch. Ensure you’re prepared, organised, and you have all the information you need. Go to book launches at different venues to see how they work.

Don’t worry too much about social media. While you can let people know about your launch – usually about a month, two weeks and a few days before your launch on social media, it’s not an optimal marketing platform. Think about all the social media posts you’ve scrolled through without clicking through or even liking. And if you don’t have many followers, it stands to reason your audience won’t be big either.

Having said that, the worst attended launches I’ve hosted have been for so-called influencers, who despite having sometimes hundreds of thousands of followers, can’t convert or convince them to come along.

The best responses come from personal invitations, via email, text or conversation. In fact, the best attended launches with the most sales have often been self-published authors who’ve invited everyone they know!

What’s the a ‘best way’ to launch a book?

Keep it simple! The simpler you keep your launch, the smoother it will go. The more elements you add, the more potential for things to go wrong.

With speeches or in conversations, don’t try to “sell” the book to your audience. As most of the people attending will know you and are already there to support you and buy the book,

Like good writing, don’t try to tell them everything – let them have a reason to buy and read the book. Sell the “sizzle”, not the steak – like a well written blurb, entice them with just enough breadcrumbs that they’ll want to read more.

Don’t tell them about how you wrote the book – knowing the recipe doesn’t make the cake any tastier.

Keep proceedings short – you won’t make the book more appealing by talking more about it: in fact the opposite! The shorter you keep the proceedings, the less you have to worry about them, and the more time you’ll have to sell your book and mingle with your fans!

Sunil Badami is a writer, broadcaster and academic, whose work has been published in Australia and overseas and featured in nearly every Australian media outlet, including ABC Radio and TV.

He has taught creative writing at UNSW and UTS for over a decade, assessed and mentored authors and manuscripts for the ASA, assessed grants for Copyright Agency, been a chair of judges for the NSW Literary Awards, sits on the boards of the Canberra Writers Festival and Sydney Festival, and on the CreateNSW Publishing and Literature Panel. His novel An Allergy, was shortlisted for the 2026 Penguin Literary Prize.

He previously managed events at iconic Sydney bookshop Gleebooks.

Join Seminar: How to Launch Your Book with Sunil Badami, Tuesday 1 September, 6:30pm-8:30pm, online.

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