Author Pics: A Discussion

The good ol’ author pic is the ire of almost all authors. Often found on the back sleeve of a book, it’s easy to see why the com­mon author treats their back-of-the-book pic with gen­eral dis­dain. There’s a rea­son movie direc­tors don’t flash their por­taits onto the big screen at the end of their movies. I mean, would the final scene of Thelma & Louise have the same impact if it was fol­lowed by this?

But to undi­gress (not an offi­cial word) my label mate at Hardie Grant Egmont, author Chris Mor­phew, recently blogged about his own author pics and pro­ceeded to label one of my author pics as a ‘Clas­sic Mope’.

I think he’s prob­a­bly right. Some other favourite clas­sic author poses include:

The Guru Pose.

The ‘I’m so doey-eyed how could you not believe me?’ Pose.

And the ‘I signed a movie con­tract and hired a styl­ist” Pose.

If a clas­sic author pose can­not be struck the next best way to show your­self as an author is to turn the author photo black and white.

Noth­ing says ‘author’ more than grayscal­ing the author pic.

And here’s my label-mate Chris Mor­phew author-ised.

Although I guess there are some peo­ple who are just never going to look like authors.