George W Bush will embark next month on an international speaking tour aimed at making him hundreds of thousands of dollars and reshaping his battered image abroad.

The former president plans to make about ten speeches over the next year — the first of what he hopes will be many more — at various venues in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Mr Bush promised at his final news conference that he would keep busy as soon as he left office. He is also working on a book about his eight tumultuous years in the White House and his presidential institute. Its central theme will be liberty.

He will deliver his first speech on March 17 in Calgary, Canada. It will be held in a convention centre before a mostly business audience, and the press will not be allowed to attend. The brochure promoting it reads: “President during a period of great consequence, George W Bush shares thoughts on his eight momentous years in the Oval Office and discusses the challenges facing the world in the 21st century.”

Post-presidential speaking can be lucrative, although Mr Bush will struggle to match the colossal sums amassed by Bill Clinton. By the end of 2007 he had made roughly $40 million, including $10 million in 2006 alone. For one speech — to Citigroup in France in 2004 — he was paid $250,000. Mr Clinton has now been forced to curb his engagements drastically because of conflict of interest concerns over his wife Hillary’s role as US Secretary of State.

Mr Bush has been taken on by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents an array of prominent public figures, including Tony Blair, John Major and Mr Bush’s wife, Laura.

Promoting its new client on its website , it says of the former president: “Faced with challenges from a terrorist attack to a global financial crisis, he made difficult decisions that will shape the nation’s course and world affairs for years to come.”

Mr Bush spent the first month as an ex-president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Last week he moved to his new home in Dallas.

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