Book tour: My #AustroScottishBookTour

What’s a book tour really like? My January 2025 tour around Austria and Scotland was full of sofa-beds, train rides and kindness. If you know of any previous Austro-Scottish book tours, do let me know.

I recently completed a tour around Austria and Scotland to promote my new book Lessons in Diplomacy: Politics, Power and Parties.

Book tours are knackering

Anyone who’s done a book tour can tell you they’re knackering. Thriller writer John Connolly, under the hashtag #HotelOdyssey, publishes on Facebook pictures of the often dismal hotel rooms he stays in on book tours. I get round this where possible by staying with generous friends – 4 times on this trip, including 2 comfy sofa-beds: thank-you Steffie, Wolfgang, Alexandra and Frances! I slept like a log.

My old friend Wolfgang in snowy Scharnstein

The only thing more knackering than a book tour is setting up a book tour. Some authors are lucky enough to have book tours organised for them, but I have not yet ascended to those Olympian heights. Every aspect of every event needs to be worked out. Who will provide books for the venue, and ensure an audience? Are there special requests for things we should discuss? What publicity materials do people need? How can I help? It’s a colossal task.

I’m profoundly grateful for the hard work and patience of everyone who helped organise my tour. In addition to those named above, in Vienna special thanks to Martina Schubert and Eva-Maria Bauer at the Diplomatic Academy and Guy Perlaki at Shakespeare & Co. In Krems, to Elfriede Leitner and Gabriel Lentner. Salzburg: to Gudrun Kavalir and Christoph Tonhaft for Haftton Clothing (and Cay Bubendorfer for dinner afterwards), Holger Benz at the Salzburg International School and Gabrielle Hinterbuchner at the English Center. In London, Kaviesh Kinger at the LSE; at St Andrews: Zoë Panzer, Charlie Ball and Alexander Peris; in Edinburgh, Ellie Hewes; and in Glasgow, Rogelia Pastor-Castro. At the risk of sounding like an Oscars acceptance speech, thanks so much; it was all fabulous.

Book tour: Vienna

The talks kicked off in the venerable halls of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. The Empress Maria Theresa founded the DA in 1754: it terms itself “the oldest professional school in the world”. We launched the German version of Lessons in Diplomacy, called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Diplomacy, there in April 2023. I was delighted to meet old friends, and to discover they’d moved the event into a bigger room because too many people were coming.

It’s reassuring to see a sign announcing your event when you arrive

In the evening, Vienna’s brilliant English-language bookshop, Shakespeare & Co, hosted me for a reading – see picture at the top. I thoroughly recommend Shakespeare & Co to anyone buying books in Vienna. They sold out of Lessons in Diplomacy on the night, but I understand they have new copies in, as well as all my fiction and literally thousands of other fine books.

Krems

The Danube University of Krems, 80km from Vienna, focuses on mature students: its full name is the University for Continuing Education Krems. I delivered a four-and-a-half-hour workshop, in German, on “Brexit and the role of Britain in the EU”. It’s not a subject everyone would choose, but most of the eloquent and impressive students seemed to enjoy it and even stayed to the end.

Some of the students at Krems, with English and German editions of the book

Salzburg

From Krems to Scharnstein, where my friend Wolfgang lives in a converted sawmill he runs as innovative cultural centre Schönau 8, between a railway track and a former scythe factory. The weather was icy. From there it was on to Salzburg, where in 2016 I spent a blissful month polishing up my German in incessant August rain before starting as British ambassador to Austria.

A possibly apocryphal story illustrates how Salzburg punches above its weight culturally. The city of Shanghai (population 25 million) wanted a twinning arrangement. The population of Salzburg was a mere half million, they understood, but that would have to do. Only later did the Chinese realise that the Salzburg region (Land) has a population of half a million; the city itself has just 160,000. This dynamic cultural hub is world famous.

At Haftton Clothing

Supplies of “Lessons in Diplomacy” ordered by the helpful Rupertus Buchhandlung for our reading at elegant Haftton Clothing in Salzburg had not arrived. But people snapped up the German-language version and other books. Next morning I spoke to lively IB students at the Salzburg International School (below), who peppered me with incisive questions about international affairs.

Finally in Salzburg I spoke at the English Center to the “The Afternoon Book Club” and “The Other Evening Book Club” (to distinguish it from “The Evening Book Club”). Turnout was terrific at both, although they, too, had had problems with book deliveries.

Talks in places stuffed with books, like the English Center, have a special ambience

I was delighted to see evidence of thorough reading and study from one Salzburg attendee:

Book tour: London

On 25 February I attended a panel at the “Grimshaw Club“, an international relations society at the LSE, on “Diplomacy and Security“. Despite the lengthy technical subtitle (“Exploring how mainstream and critical international relations theory perspectives on diplomacy, negotiations and security are applied in practice“) we had a good discussion. Also on the panel were Mariana Serrano, from the Mexican Embassy in London, and John Everard, a former FCDO colleague who had fascinating postings as British ambassador in Belarus, Uruguay and North Korea.

The panel at the Grimshaw Club

Book tour: St Andrews

Next up was St Andrew’s, one of the oldest universities in the UK. The town’s location, north-west of Edinburgh on the North Sea, is thrilling.

St Andrews Castle was repeatedly destroyed in the Wars of Scottish Independence (13th and 14th centuries) and again during the Reformation of the 16thC

My hosts, the St Andrews Foreign Affairs Society, are fantastically well-organised and active. Not only did they organised around 150 people to come to my talk on 27 January. They also set up a careers talk the next morning, to which another hundred people (not all the same ones – Ed) turned up. Spectacular.

Happy author signing books in St Andrews

Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh Diplomacy Society are another dynamic and well-led outfit. When I saw people streaming in, my first thought was irritation that some better-attended event was stealing my audience. It turned out that the DiploSoc had managed to fill a 250-seat lecture hall. They snapped up all 60 copies of “Lessons in Diplomacy” that Bristol University Press had sent. They even fed me a delicious pizza afterwards – admirable.

With DiploSoc organising committee

Glasgow

The final talk on my book tour was at Strathclyde University – slogan “The Place of Useful Learning”. Quite a challenge for a visiting speaker! Yet again, organisation and attendees were terrific, with a crowd of MSc Diplomacy and International Security students plus one or two old friends. The MSc course are active on social media, notably LinkedIn. I was impressed not only that every student seemed to have bought a copy of “Lessons in Diplomacy” in advance…

… but that some had read it in detail.

I must find out what the different colours mean

What happens next?

I have a few other talks coming up – see details here. The trickiest bit, as always, is the tension between promoting your books, eg through book tours, and writing new stuff. If you don’t tell people about your writing, they’ll not see it. On the other hand, I prefer to think of myself as a writer, rather than a marketing guru. I’d welcome advice from other writers on how you manage this balance.

If you lead or attend an entity that might fancy a talk about “Lessons in Diplomacy”, do get in touch.

For more about all my books, click this link.