BY PENNY FREEMAN
As writers, we’ve all got the fantasy: the six-figure advance comes dancing through the mail, trailing the high-powered agent and Big Five publisher in its wake. NYT best seller list. Movie deal. Fame. Fortune. Oprah. World tour with thousands of adoring fans queuing up to buy one of the stacks of your $35 hardbacks that flank you as you sit beneath a ten-foot banner in the highest-end bookstore in every city along the way. Perhaps it’s even THE word on the tongue of every Intelligencia wag on NPR.
And there, adorning the entire back dust cover shines your glorious face, in all your coifed and tailored glory, the perfect portrait captured by an ace photographer. A veritable work of art.
But, the reality is, you’ve got a stack of rejection letters papering your walls or propping up your computer monitor, you’ve decided to go independent, perhaps with a small boutique publishing house with an alternative business model, and your writing space is the coffee table littered with used paper plates and cats. Your publicity is your own to muddle out, and, in truth, you’re not that chic and suave author with the leather and walnut library lit by stained glass and imbued with the slightest aroma of really expensive pipe tobacco.
You’re just you. I mean, you could name a half-dozen millionaire authors who go out into public looking like back-room denizens of a comic book store, so you surely can get away with a snapshot on your Facebook or web page. After all, it’s not what you look like. It’s what you write. Right?
Wrong. Let’s face it. Although attitudes are changing, most people see “self-published” as synonymous with “bad writing.” Image does count. Readers do judge books by their covers, and, unfortunately, without the right look, even authors signed with independent publishing houses can come off looking like amateurs who got suckered into a vanity press scheme.
You’ve heard the old adage, “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” If you want to sell books, the same goes for authors. Portray yourself as successful as you want to be. If money is an issue, choose what strategies will give you the most return on your investment and look professional in those areas. Quality, not quantity. Here are three things you can do without spending a lot of money that will improve your “author” image.
- Personal domain name. Nothing says self-published like janewhozawhatzit.blogspot.com. A personal URL costs $15 a year to register, and a subscription to a web hosting service can be as little as $1.99 a month for the first year. Many online services, such as Blogger, WordPress, and Wix, provide easy-to-use, free templates, but still allow the incorporation of a personal URL. A private domain and a dynamic, contemporary website go a long way in dressing an author for success.
- Author portrait. Forget the snapshot from your cellphone, especially the candid one. There are times and places for those—specifically, blog posts when you want to show the world how cool your life is, but save the front page for the formal stuff. Pull that thrifty-mailer out of the trash and dig out the “free sitting” coupon from J.C. Penney or Sears or K-Mart or whatever, and get down to have your portrait taken. (Spring for the DVD. You’re an author. Respect copyright.)
Or, pester your friend who just bought that new SLR from Costco. At the very, very least, use an honest-to-goodness camera and strike a pose. Present to the world a high-density, high-quality image of yourself—something by which you’ll want them to remember you after they’ve navigated away from your website, blog, or profile page.
- ISBN. Every book published through CreateSpace and most other ebook or print-on-demand services require an International Standard Book Number. It’s that number on the back of books that identifies it in catalogs in libraries and bookstores across the world. This number is attached to the publisher who purchased it. Therefore, if you do not directly purchase an ISBN, CreateSpace will do it for you. If they do, they will be listed as the publisher of your book on all product information pages. If you want to appear professional, buy your own ISBN. Prices vary widely, from $18 for a single ISBN to $125 for a package deal, so do your homework to ensure you know what you’re getting and you get what you need.
I can hear you adding up the ka’chings in your head, but take things one step at a time. This is an investment in your future, and, in the grand scheme of things, a very small one. Whether you’ve signed with a publisher, are going it alone, or are building the foundation of a following, you be in control of your image, your brand. Start out right from the very beginning, and always put your best face forward. Show the world (and yourself) the author you want to be.
Editor in Chief Penny Freeman lives, writes, edits, and markets from her home in southeast Texas. She currently supervises several editorial and marketing projects.