Keeping Your Author Profile and Posts Picture Current

by Linda Thorne

My company asked me to provide a picture and a profile page recently for something our company is publishing for employees nationwide. For some reason they needed it that morning, so I had authorization and approval to find someone to take it for me.

The first thing that came into my mind was: Yay. I now have a great excuse to impose upon someone to take photos of me when I'm in dire need of updated ones for my author posts. The outcome is the pic of me above.

Pictures are important for authors. You'll need them for your website, your swag, Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts. Most people will remember pictures before they remember names. To help get your name out there include your picture with it, often. People will begin to recognize you. But your picture needs to look like you. Whether you think you're too thin, too fat, too wrinkly, you will always look the way you do.

I used Tucker Photography here in Nashville in November 2014 and bought photos to use on Facebook for my website, and a number of posts coming out in preparation of Just Another Termination's August 2015 release. That took time and money, but I've gotten a lot of mileage out of those pix. The problem is they are getting close to two years old, so I've started adding more current pictures and will eventually let the older ones go.

At a writers conference I attended, I Googled some of the authors I'd met. I had a problem finding one online. Why? Because the person's picture was so outdated, I thought this had to be another author with the same name. Finally, after getting the names of some of the books this author had published, I was able to confirm that the person's picture online was that of the author I met. I could not find any resemblance.  

I know an author who uses initials for the first name and doesn't post personal pictures. Instead, she posts something more like a logo with her face hidden behind. I think it adds mystic to her branding and if that's what she wants her name to be identified with instead of her picture, that works too. Recently, she mentioned the advantage of not having to update her picture.

Time seems to pass quickly, at least to me it does. We all will change: Look older, fatter, skinnier, grayer, some may grow beards or shave beards, become bald. Keeping pictures updated may be a nuisance, but you are the biggest part of your branding, so let the real you be seen.