motivated by his dislike of Slater, and that he secretly met the hacker in public parks to discuss how the information should be released. He then spent a significant amount of time analysing the content and only published material which he believed was in the public interest. He was careful to avoid releasing sensitive material about Slater and others mentioned in the hacked emails which did not involve a significant public interest. Production The production, printing, and distribution of the book was done in secret by Craig Potton Publishing. Co-owner of the publishing company, Robbie Burton, said: "It was one of the great and surreal and scary moments of my publishing career." Burton said the secrecy was necessary because they were wary that the book might annoy some people with "deep pockets" who "might be inclined to revenge". The book was produced very quickly by Craig Potton Publishing, where staff worked on it from Thursday evening to the following Tuesday. Once the book was finished, first it was printed in secret in Wellington, before being shipped back to Nelson and stored in a warehouse, and then finally being sent unannounced to stores around the country. Release Dirty Politics was released at Unity Books in Wellington on 13 August 2014, with a crowd of approximately 150. Prior to the release of the book, details of what it would be about were the subject of substantial speculation, as the topic of the book was kept secret in order to avoid it being blocked from release by a court injunction. Four days after release, it had sold about 10,000 copies, in addition to 1,000 e-book sales. Robbie Burton, executive director of Craig Potton Publishing, said: "I've never seen anything like this before, in terms of the speed at which it's happening." A week after release, sales had reached approximately 15,000, and by mid September, sales were at almost 20,000. The first two chapters are available free on-line. Two weeks after the release of the book, Hager spoke at the four-day biennial Writers & Readers Festival in Christchurch. About 5000 people attended 57 events, one of which was a public discussion called Secrets, Spies and Free Speech featuring Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager, Guardian journalist Luke Harding and Australian journalist Richard King. The discussion was mainly about the freedom of speech in Western democracies. Main features Hager provides numerous incidents of dirty politics in