Book cover design: Lessons in Diplomacy

You can now pre-order my new book Lessons in Diplomacy: Politics, Power and Parties. The cover is splendid.

Lessons in Diplomacy: the book cover design

Bristol University Press have come up with a wonderful cover for “Lessons in Diplomacy”. Let me know what you think. The picture is of me on a US road-trip in 1982.

Book cover design: how it happens

Authors, famously, often cannot influence their book covers. This applies particularly where a book is published in lots of different countries. This can lead to wildly varying covers, suggesting quite different books. Publishers may market the same book as a gritty thriller in one country and as a romance in another, if they think that will sell better.

When Immortal Works published my Istanbul thriller Palladium, they included stern language in the contract making clear that although they would consult me on the book cover design, the final decision was up to them. Actually, I thought their design was brilliant (left). They then changed it to a more standard “thriller-type” cover, which I also like (right). They also used this for the Audible version.

The German version of Lessons in Diplomacy is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Diplomacy: Wie Diplomatie die Welt erklärt (“How diplomacy explains the world”). It came out in April 2023. Again, when they consulted me on the book cover design, I thought it was terrific:

When I first saw the proposed cover for Lessons in Diplomacy: Politics, Power and Parties, I was thrilled. It struck me as a brilliant depiction of a book that I hope offers both entertainment and insights.

Available for pre-order

Rather wonderfully, Lessons in Diplomacy is already available for pre-order. You can do so on Amazon (the link should take you to your local Amazon). The blurb reads:

Leigh Turner’s witty globe-trotting adventure through one of the most intriguing careers a person can have offers astute reflections on Brexit, Russia’s War with Ukraine and the chaos of modern politics, shedding new light on the intricacies of modern statecraft, including what we all can learn from a good diplomat or ambassador.

You can also pre-order Lessons in Diplomacy direct from Bristol University Press or from good bookshops.

I am of course hoping that as many people as possible will pre-order the book so that on 24 September it soars to the top of the sales charts.

Lessons in Diplomacy – read more

You can read two excerpts from Lessons in Diplomacy on my “books” page.

Book cover design – self-publishing

If you’re self-publishing your own book and need a book cover design, you might like my post “Book covers: a how-to guide“. It tells you all that can go right – or wrong.