How’s your author portrait looking? Did it come from a cellphone selfie, or did you use your laptop’s webcam to capture it? Maybe it turned out OK, but… well, I’m seeing a lot of these around, at indie author Amazon pages, and they’re hurting. Bad lighting, no lighting, too wide an angle that makes you look bloated, distracting background, and all those little nits a photographer tends to notice.

You might need to take a second look. I know I did, as these next three samples, all cellphone selfies, show.

I’ve been using the first one as an avatar for a month or so. Does it work? A little, but I’m not sure that’s how I want to be known. I offer the other two photos to poke a little fun (at me!) while showing how not to take a selfie (up close, where a distorted perspective makes those, err, up front objects seem larger than they are). With the third sample I show the way to mitigate that issue by taking the photo farther out and cropping. Either of those last two are terrible on the lighting front. Yet, this is much of what I see out there–and worse, I’m afraid.

Over the past month or so I’ve wondered whether I’m doing any better. I’ve been spending all this time on making my website look good, and designing appealing covers, but not taking care of how my facial cover comes across as part of this author branding thing.

In my case this hair thing growing on my face made me refresh my portrait. It used to look like this black and white job. OK, if a little formal, but no longer current, and maybe not entirely appropriate for an author or for the image I’m hoping to project alongside my writing style. In any case, though–and I’m trying to be kind–this old photo still ranks a few notches above a lot of what other authors use.

Ask yourself: is that how you want your readers to connect with you? We live in a visual age, and your photo provides one of the handles people use to connect with you. All that to say, it comes down to how you want your readers and colleagues to perceive you, and yes, they do judge you–among other things–by the cover. There we go again, the cover, the one you spend so much time designing and tweaking for your books. Maybe you deserve similar, thoughtful treatment.

Alright, enough pontificating.

They say he who serves as his own lawyer has a fool for a client, and in that spirit, I recommend that if you don’t have the budget for a pro photographer, at least get together with a buddy who knows his way around a camera–preferably one that doesn’t make phone calls or sends out texts–along with the equipment that goes with it and see what you two can put together.

As for me, I have a fool for a client. I certainly felt very foolish setting up all my gear and running back and forth to take one shot at a time. Fifty shots later, these four bubbled to the top. Of these, one sticks out as the best. If you go to my About page, you’ll see it there.

Maybe in a couple of months I’ll go through this exercise again, but for now, back to writing for me!

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