There is one guaranteed way of avoiding the fixed grin of Tony Blair when his ardently awaited political memoir, A Journey, finally hits the book shops on 1 September with a thud — 624 pages, for a reported advance of £4.6m.

Although the cover of the regular edition features the former prime minister in sincere stare straight-to-camera and regular-kind-of-guy unbuttoned collar, there is also a special edition with none of those features. For a mere £150, each signed copy will have a curiously liturgical appearance, in a cloth slip case as crimson as a cardinal, with the title stamped in gold.

Blair's publishers, Random House, will attempt to generate Harry Potterish excitement, with the book launched worldwide without advance release of review copies or a pre-publication serialisation deal. Translation rights have already been sold in 14 territories, according to The Bookseller, and an ebook version, and an audio book read by the author, will also be released. A dedicated website, featuring previously unseen photographs, videos and extracts, has also been set up.

A spokeswoman for Random House was unable to reveal how many copies of the special edition have been printed. However, on the Amazon website the regular edition has already been slashed to half price, £12.50.

It may be some comfort to the author that Peter Mandelson's The Third Man, widely thought to have been rushed to publication to beat Blair, has been chopped to exactly the same price. Prelude to Power, the diaries of the real third man, Alastair Campbell, is now even better value at £11.99. Neither book is available in Bible format.

• This article was amended on 10 August 2010. The original said that a dedicated website would be launched on publication day. This has been corrected.