There is money in words. I am talking not about journalism, since few of its practitioners earn very much and most are, in any case, hopeless at keeping it. Nor do I mean bestselling fiction or books on how to cook, diet or be assertive. I am concerned with the spoken, not written, word: the world of public speaking. Tony Blair recently collected £180,000, not far short of a million dirhams, for two half-hour speeches delivered in Manila. He earned about the same in his annual salary as British prime minister and presumably took it on the chin when some of the newspapers, including The Times of London, reported with the merest hint of a sneer that his bons mots had included such gems as "politics really matters, but a lot of what goes on is not great", "politicians are a very strange people" and "helping people is a noble profession - but not noble to pursue".
Such earning power, by all accounts, makes the former British prime minister the world's highest paid public speaker. His wife, Cherie, also picks up some pin money on the circuit, though she must make do with £25,000 from each event. The couple's post-Downing Street prosperity came to mind as I read an article in the Aer Lingus in-flight magazine, Cara, on the art of public speaking. The Blairs were not mentioned; the author, Donal Cronin, the director of a communications company, dwelt instead on the oratory of US President Barack Obama and his success, in his inaugural address, in "capturing perfectly the mood and the moment".
Of course, public speaking is just part of the job of president. Mr Obama will have to leave office before he can turn his skills, and White House reminiscences, into a career. It is also true that for every individual capable of commanding a hefty fee, there will be thousands who are also called upon from time to time to stand up without payment at all and try to win the attention of others. My own speechmaking efforts have been modest: leaving parties (mine, and those of others who wished me to say a few words to bid them farewell), gatherings of French tourism chiefs, and a few schools and colleges. None of these brought me a penny. I had to wait until rather late in life for my first paid engagement and even then the fee was conditional on converting a 2,500-word speech into a written presentation at least three times as long.
To the few who can make a steady income from what they have to say after dinner or to conferences, I offer only congratulation. For the rest of us, the highest ambition when addressing audiences in connection with our work or interests is to avoid making fools of ourselves. Cronin's guide in Cara offered plenty of good advice on how to do so and also to ensure that listeners neither grimace nor nod off.
His rules are simple. He urges speakers to avoid protracted introductions and say something straight away that will grab everyone's attention; speak to a roomful of people as if talking to one person; exploit the "satisfying rhythm" of making points in threes; prefer everyday language to jargon; and find different ways of repeating important thoughts. Cronin is no great admirer of slide projectors, which suits me since I would feel uncomfortable using them. He does recommend rehearsing out loud more than once so that the speech is ultimately made using only a few cards outlining each main theme. I prefer either to speak without notes at all, or to prepare a transcript but mark points at which it may be possible to wander off on some interesting tangent.
With practice, someone who at first regards public speaking as an ordeal may be surprised at how effective he or she can become. Even when that level of competence is reached, however, it will still be too soon to send off a CV to PLDT, the telecommunications firm that sponsored Mr Blair's £6,000-a-minute effort in the Philippines. Colin Randall is a contributing editor to The National and can be contacted at crandall@thenational.ae