One thing that surprised me as I got to meet more and more authors was, they often don’t look like their author photos. Now there are exceptions to this of course, 
but I’m not one of them! You see I get bored of my hairstyle quite quickly. I’ll keep it for maybe a year maximum before I’m ready for a change; a new style, a new colour, something a little different.
Author photos can be expensive as well. Not every author has family to call upon and that’s another reason why they’ll keep their author photos for years. Hairstyles will have changed, they’ll get a little older and of course they’ll look a little different. Plus if you’ve got a gorgeous photo of yourself, looking your best, you don’t want to change it do you?
My author photo was taken about a year ago. As you can see I’m a brunette in this (a slightly darker brown than my natural brown). I had the photo professionally taken by my sister-in-law who runs Smile Photography. For years I’ve posed for family photos with her and I know her style and way of working so I knew the shoot would take a couple of hours and have me posing in all sorts of places. In this photo I’m actually sitting in a field with long grass all around me, hoping there were no snakes around! From the hundreds of photos that were taken, we narrowed them down to two. One just a headshot and the other a full body shot which is available in my media kit. I generally just use the headshot though.
So that was a whole year ago. It was definitely time for a change. Yesterday I went to the hairdressers and I’m now a redhead with lighter foils through my fringe. The style is still short though. I’m one of those people who has dead straight hair. It’s thick with not so much as a hint of a wrinkle in it. When I grow it out, it falls straight down like a limp asparagus. I’m also not someone who can be bothered spending much time in front of the mirror doing elaborate styles, or curling it, or whatever. If I can’t towel dry it, throw a tiny bit of product in and go, then I’m not interested! Short suits me just fine.
So next time you go to a book signing, or a convention, just be aware that the person you’re looking to get an autograph from, may not look like you expect them to!
