Former Queensland premier Anna Bligh says arrogance and hubris led to the Liberal National Party's defeat at this year's state election.

On Tuesday it will be three years since the Bligh government suffered a landslide election loss to the LNP, and not even Ms Bligh thought at the time her successors would be one-term wonders.

However, her opinion changed as she watched the Newman government fight with doctors, nurses, the judiciary and the public service.

"I think most people, including myself, would have thought that was a preposterous suggestion [for them to lose after one term]," she said.

"But for those of us, including myself, who watched that government over three years, it didn't come as a surprise in the end.

"There was a lot of hubris a lot of arrogance and people reacted very strongly to it."

Ms Bligh will visit Brisbane on Tuesday to promote her book, Through the Wall: Reflections of Leadership, Love and Survival.

Speaking on 7.30, Ms Bligh said she was glued to the television on January 31 to watch Mr Newman's defeat.

"I try not to be a vengeful person, I wasn't entirely successful on election night," she said.

"Politics is a ruthless business.

"When you walk on that field there is always 50/50 chance of one result or the other.

"I think it is really important to understand that, and not be so fearful of failing that you won't take the risks that are needed to do the things that people want you to do."

After leading Labor to a historic defeat Ms Bligh writes in her book that the health payroll scandal, infighting in federal Labor, and union advertising about the asset sales turned voters against her.

She was devastated.

"People do understand that losing is always hard and it is amplified if you're doing it on a public stage, and you've got millions of people watching this humiliating defeat," she said.

"It is a very emotional experience and when a friend described it to somebody else as heartbreak, I put it into the book because I think it captured how emotional the experience is.

"Regardless of what side of politics people are on, they're generally in my experience there because they feel real passion about the ideas.

"And when you craft your whole life around that kind of passion, and it just falls away from you overnight, there is a sense of heartache and losing an emotional attachment to something."

Despite rise to power Bligh felt 'very much a novelty'

Ms Bligh spent over 17 years in Queensland Parliament and was the first woman to be elected as state premier state in her own right.

She said despite her rise to power she at times felt pigeonholed.

"You're very much a novelty," she said.

"I'm interested, just like everybody else is in the electorate, what kind of leaders will women make? We haven't had that many of them.

"So people are genuinely and naturally curious but that means that it's very difficult to ever see yourself as - to ever escape your gender. You're always seen as a woman PM, a woman leader, a woman premier."