FUN FACT: Humans like buying books that they have reason to believe were written by actual humans like themselves. (*Pfff* humans, amiright?) Subsequently, if you write a book, the publisher is going to ask for a picture of you to put on the back. Since this picture is going to be used in offset printing, it needs to be relatively high resolution. When No Starch Press asked me for a high-rez pic to use as my author photo back in 2010, I had exactly *two* pictures to choose from, both taken at the spur of the moment on the same day. The one I used–shown at the left–is the one where you *can’t* see that I’m holding a gun[*]
So, that was the entire process for choosing my author photo: Let’s go with the one with no visible guns. We in the biz call that “understanding the market.” Fortunately, in the intervening years, phone-based cameras have gotten much better and I’ve met more photographers. I now have a plethora of options for my new author photo–and you can help us choose one!
Please take a few seconds to finish this quick one-question survey. Help a brother out! Thank you, and Happy 2015!!!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9QC7WVD
[*] Why did I only have two hi-rez photos of myself? Because if was 2010 and I’m a dad, and so most of the pictures I had were ones I’d taken of my wife and kids, and the other handful were mostly taken using cellphones, or were just insanely goofy. Why was I holding a gun in the remaining hi-rez pics? Because my brother-in-law–who is a professional photographer–took them the first time he came skeet shooting with me and my dad and my other brother-in-law. Also, I live in America, where it can sometimes seem pretty hard to take a picture *without* a gun in the frame. (*Pfff* America, amiright?)