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Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

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Let me catch you up. As you may or may not be aware, I’ve recently embarked on this amazingly exciting journey of being an indie author. There is so much to learn and so many little details to keep track of, but it’s also a great deal of fun.

So here I am with a manuscript draft, a website half-built, ISBN’s requested, author profile pages set up on my indie publishing site when the realization hits me. I need a profile picture. Every bit of online presence needs a photo. Author website, check; indie publishing author pages, check; social media pages, check. Well crap.

Guess who doesn’t have a profile picture? That’s right, little old me. I hate, I mean, go to the dentist if I can get out of it, hate having my picture taken. I don’t take selfies and I for sure don’t let anyone else take a picture of me…unless you’re super sneaky…ahem, cough, Jodi.

Anyway, I digress. I need a photo, and I need one quickly. I have an iPhone, so I’ll do it myself. What could go wrong?

I’ll tell you what. The social distancing in 2020 has gone on for months and I don’t have much reason to leave the house, so the hair roots are about six inches long. When I’m trying to take these profile shots, my arms are apparently about six inches too short. It’s an Epic fail.

I round up my son and promote him to photographer. There’s no pay increase, but it comes with a corner office. Unfortunately, he’s doing something very wrong, since every picture he takes makes me look fat. I understand that the camera adds ten pounds; however, he’s managed to find a way to add twenty or thirty pounds to every shot, which is ridiculous. It must be the amateur photographer’s fault. There’s no other logical explanation.

We try different angles and poses and it hits the point of sheer ridiculousness. I’m laughing so hard by this point that he manages to capture a couple of candid shots, which to my surprise, I find I can live with. Woohoo. I now have a couple of temporary so-so pictures for my online presence.

Now we come to the point of my story. Is a picture worth a thousand words? Fast forward a month and I have a book being published. Guess who needs an author picture to go on the back cover? Guess who still hasn’t hit the hair salon so her roots are now seven inches long? Yep, you got it. Me again.

When I tried rounding up my photographer for another photoshoot, he ran away and locked himself in his room. I don’t understand why.

So here I am and I need a photo RIGHT NOW if I’m going to have my book available for the scheduled release. Back I go to the crappy profile pics we took the month before and I pop one into the cover template.

Is a picture worth a thousand words? That crappy, overexposed, bad angle, terrible hair photo on the back cover of a book that will sit on someone’s shelf for years to come…let me tell you, that my friends, is pure gold, and worth much more than a thousand words.

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