At last. My new ebook Speechwriting for Leaders is out. Hurrah.

General blurb and a link for international readers here. UK folk can (and must) buy it through Amazon here.

Meanwhile over in Poland – as if by magic – a vivid row has erupted over the fact that I have been giving speechwriting support to former Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski. Why is he consulting foreigners on Polish speeches? He speaks English – why not write his own damn’ speeches? Why has Crawford been PAID SO MUCH? Still, all this is favourable publicity. Of a sort.

The book is good, if I say so myself. Buy it. It has lots of new insights into the practical public speaking process at all levels. Its key point is that what makes a speech work is all about getting lots of details right, as well as finding good, clear words that help the speaker match the tone of the occasion to communicate with the audience there on the day as well as with e-audiences and history.

To get all those details right, you have to be aware that they exist. Far too many speakers and their supporting colleagues just don’t look at the speech or presentation in these terms, so the results are less than optimum. They focus on the words, not the process.

But the words make intellectual and emotional sense – they connect – only if the process/context/message are all in harmony. It’s all about bringing a beady expert eye to Big Picture and micro-organisational detail simultaneously to get superb results that resonate on the day and well beyond. That’s what the noisy critics of Radek Sikorski don’t understand.

The book breaks new ground in various ways. It talks about disruptive e-heckling via Twitter. It looks at how voice-recognition software can transform the drafting/creative process. And it combines my analysis of some top-end speeches I actually witnessed (eg Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac in Sarajevo) with the full texts of my original FCO telegrams reporting on those speeches as unearthed thanks to the miracles of FOI. Never done before. Most instructive.

The book ends with a tough look at the speeches of Presidents Obama and Putin:

Vladimir Putin’s speeches are full of ripe, chewy, raw political meat. President Obama’s speeches are souffés, impressive to behold but oddly insubstantial and unsatisfying when examined closely…

How do you capture in words on a page the leader’s own personality? How do you help the leader choose words that ft like that jigsaw piece with the audience, the occasion, and the wider context? How do you pitch the speech at just the right level of ambition and risk that makes sense given the leader’s current reputation and career trajectory?

How do you make sure that what they hear is what the leader wants them to hear? How do you help the leader sound strong?

There is no one answer. It’s all about working out the key messages (open and subliminal), then developing them through intolerant attention to detail for both the speech itself and all the surrounding context.

Pick the tools for the job. Have lots of tools. Keep them sharp. Look out for new ones…

The book has been generously endorsed by Lord Owen, Jack Straw and top US diplomat Tom Pickering. Plus John O’Sullivan, who helped Margaret Thatcher with her speeches back in the day. John has kindly said this:

Charles Crawford is the Dale Carnegie of speech-writing. Also its P.G. Wodehouse. His book is not only terrific practical advice that will win supporters and influence audiences but also a very funny entertaining read. It’s unputdownable. And when you’ve read it, you’ll be unputdownable too

Endorsements do not come better than that.

You know what you have to do.