Books with photos of the author

[RitalinKid]

Seeing authors reminds me you can be very plain looking and still be an exceptional artist. MTV has plugged us full of the idea that talented people are beautiful. Look at popular musical artists prior to MTV. Not always a pretty site.

Here's a pic of Jared Diamond. IMO, he's a great author and a brilliant guy. According to my girlfriend, not only does he look like this, but he wears velvet jumpsuits.

 

[VTChEwbecca]

Seeing authors reminds me you can be very plain looking and still be an exceptional artist. MTV has plugged us full of the idea that talented people are beautiful. Look at popular musical artists prior to MTV. Not always a pretty site.

That's because half of the so-called "talented" people on MTV have had a ton of plastic surgery and stylist help. And a lot of the popular music artists prior to MTV were way more talented than the ones on MTV.


I don't like photos of the author on the covers....I hate to have them staring at me everytime I put the book down. And, it always changes the reading experience one you know what someone looks like.

 

[Herenya]

I have been put off books by the authors. The author in the inside cover of my book for Literature looks really... scary. Why would you willingly want to put a bad black-and-white picture of yourself on your book.
And the author on the back of "Sabrina Fludde" (which i read years ago) nearly meant I didn't read the book because she looked like a witch or something! (Actually, I should have listened to that gut feeling and put the book back...)

But i think it can go both ways. A book I was tossing up as to whether or not to read, I did because the pic of the author on the back of his book my brother's studying looked reasonable. He wasn't attractive but he just looked like a nice, normal person. So I thought, forget the title... he doesn't look like a creep, so I'll trust it's a good book.

And the author of my English book looks ... okay. That is, he may have been good-looking when he was younger. But the picture's too small to tell.

 

[Krys]

It doesn't bother me at all. I don't purchase books based on the writer's appearance. I'm more concerned with content.

 

[Miss Shelf]

It would be a shame if people read books based on the author's photo (or lack of one). Whatever happened to "never judge a book by its cover"? Seldom are authors attractive. I've read that Samuel Johnson was afflicted with scrofula, and was generally acknowledged to be ugly, but did that lessen the importance of his writings? I don't think so.

However, it is fun to look at authors' photos and wonder how such a normal looking person could write such drivel, let alone get it published.

 

[novella]

It doesn't bother me at all. I don't purchase books based on the writer's appearance. I'm more concerned with content.

I think the discussion here, when not making outright jokes, is not about NOT reading a book because of how the author looks, but why every author must put a personal photo on the cover. Publishers must have some information about readers relating better to authors when they know what they look like.

 

[Krys]

Understood, Novella. I was just responding to those who had said that they are put off by author photos printed on books. Perhaps I misread that as meaning that they wouldn't read the book.

This may sound ignorant, but do you know of a study that shows that readers select certain books due to feeling like they can relate to an author based on his/her appearance? This makes me think of newspaper/magazine columnists who have their photos posted beside their writings.

I wonder... Authors, unlike actors/high profile celebrities, can go around public unrecognized unless they do print their picture on their book/book jacket. Perhaps they do so in hopes of gaining public recognition.

 

[Zolipara]

I wonder... Authors, unlike actors/high profile celebrities, can go around public unrecognized unless they do print their picture on their book/book jacket. Perhaps they do so in hopes of gaining public recognition.

I would actually say that many popular authors are spending more and more time promoting their books in person. At least i see a lot of authors regularly appearing on talkshows etc. Selling books is not just selling a book but selling a brandname. Most people are more likely to buy a book from a person they have heard of, almost regardless of the books subject.

I can recognize pretty much all the topselling authors in my country, and i think most others will recognize them as well. The difference between authors and actors/rockstars lie more in the nature of their fans.

 

[novella]

This is an interesting article on the subject. It has a pretty funny discussion of how the author is costumed and posed to represent the genre, e.g., weird (Stephen King), bookish (Ian McEwan), feminine (Danielle Steele). Dean Koonz always has his dog Trixie in his author photos.



Why authors photos appear on books

Here's an excerpt. I think I agree with most of this.


"Jim Cox of the Midwest Book Review recommends that publishers include author photos as a marketing tool for three main reasons:

Author photos help to sell books.
Author photos help to build name recognition.
Author photos help TV bookers decide whether the author would be "good television" material.
This is very bad news. But Cox delivers it like a messenger who doesn’t understand the telegram. He continues:

We, as a species, are visually oriented. Nature made us that way. We get most of our sensory data through what we look at. We are conditioned to notice what our fellow homo sapiens look like. We are usually unconscious about how great a role the visual impression of others has upon us in making response judgements.

The "response judgements" to which Cox refers are purchasing decisions. Book buyers are generally unaware of how their visual impressions of a writer affect their choice to buy his or her book. Such is the nature of subconscious manipulation. For that matter, such is the nature of marketing. Playing to our visual sensors is not a new ploy invented to part readers from their money. As a society, we rely on visual shorthand for information in every sphere, from educational puppet shows to television news. In this case, however, the consequences of leaning, even subconsciously, on an unreliable visual crutch (the author photo) to assess the value of an intangible product (the unread text) compromise both the consumer and the producer and in effect, change the industry. And not for the better."

 

[Kookamoor]

I wonder... Authors, unlike actors/high profile celebrities, can go around public unrecognized unless they do print their picture on their book/book jacket. Perhaps they do so in hopes of gaining public recognition.

I was wondering this myself, actually.

novella - interesting post. Explains why Terry Goodkind looks aggresive and not a little freaky. I thought it was a marketing ploy more than anything. I know you're a writer yourself, and I also understand not wanting to give too much away about yourself. But what do you think, personally, about putting a picture of yourself on a book? How would you portray yourself?

 

[novella]

But what do you think, personally, about putting a picture of yourself on a book? How would you portray yourself?

I think it's absolutely necessary to get behind the publisher's marketing effort in whatever way they want you to.

Obviously I would portray myself as an intelligent literary sexilated cynic with nice breath, shiny hair, and a really awesome wardrobe!

 

[tartan_skirt]

I found "it"! Val Mcdermott is the author, can't find a picture though... darn it.

It turned out to be a she in the end

EDIT It would help if I could spell... Val McDermid !!!!

 

[Freya]

Hmmm. Interesting article novella. Adding value with the photo of the author. I don't know about anyone else, but I just don't buy books like that. I buy quite a lot of my books off the internet, where you don't get a picture of the author. Those that I buy in shops, I either know exactly what I'm looking for and just locate it, buy it and run - or if I'm browsing, I go purely off the front cover. Don't even read the blurb. (And I wonder why I end up with some crap books...) So when I catch sight of a picture it just tends to scare me.

Tartan skirt - yeh, I would have wondered whether that was an old chap or an old lady. Although I suppose her eyebrows would have been a little more out of control if she were a chap.

 

[wilderness]

If I'm reading a book i like, i like to think of the author as this inspiring, wise person who has eyes of knowledge and words...and then you by accidentlyl see them and it ruins everything! The story is never the same afterwards. Although, i look up the authors after a good boook, and some i love the look of!!
lani

 

[WoundedThorns]

generally i dont like looking at the pictures since i do not want their face to conform into a character in the story. i just think about them more personally if i look at a picture. i dont want to think about the writer while i'm reading their work

 

[Jemima Aslana]

The author's looks never meant anything to me or my reading of a books. I have always been able to keep the things seperate.

I have once (thankfully only once) experienced a guy on a forum bring in an author's looks in his 'dissing' of the writing. It was a fairly long rant about the lack of quality in the author's writing, and while I agreed with the guy that there are many flaws in the writing he was talking about, I lost all respect for his opinion when he started to bring in the author's "fat and disgusting self".

For that reason alone I don't think I will ever put my picture in a book I've written (if ever I get published - here's hoping), it would also defeat the whole purpose of writing behind a pseudonym anyway.