Word Witch Wednesday - the dreaded author photo

I hate having my picture taken. I prefer to be the photographer. I work alone, tucked away in my writing cave, with no care how I look most of the time. My typical uniform during the week is a geeky t-shirt or hoodie and flannel pajama bottoms.

Most writers tend to be the same way. We want to share our words with the world. Not our faces!

I've had the same author photo for a while now, and I'm bored of it. I no longer think it looks like me. Okay, it does, sorta. But I want something different.

Plus, I want to cut my hair very soon. It's long right now. Every time I get more than 12 inches past my shoulders, I cut it and donate it. (Here's a good article with the differences of donating to Pantene and Locks of Love.) I don't wear short hair well, so I want to get in a photo with my long hair.

I put a lot of thought into my author photo. It is a key factor in branding yourself as an author. I'm not going to take a selfie in my writer's uniform or have my kid take one of me folding laundry. I want it to represent me as confident and professional.

I have a plain background in the photo I have now, but I either want books or something outdoorsy in the new one. Do I smile or scowl at the camera look serious? Do I go with a traditional pose or try something different? Can I pull off quirky?

I also have the difficulty rating of being an author of multi-genres. Romance authors tend to go with sexier photos. Fantasy authors with something a little magical. Urban fantasy writers go dark. I'm an author of all these things.

I could photoshop something great, but it has to be realistic. It must represent me as a writer.

What author photos stand out to you? Any favorites? Is it acceptable to take a picture of my cat in front of the computer and go with that?

Wicked Wednesday - the little things of website design

As you might have heard, I'm redesigning my website. It's long overdue. Very long overdue.

A few weeks ago, I spent some time browsing other authors' websites. I wrote notes of what I liked, of what worked well and what didn't, and what would be best for me. I realized my tastes are minimalistic. I didn't want anything full of graphics, blinking lights, or a soundtrack.

I designed a new look. A chore I thought would be simple with the sort of layout I wanted, but it was the little things that made it into an hours long job.

 

Background image / header. Most authors have a personalized header. Some use a background image. I prefer the latter. But what to use? My first idea was to find an image or series of images that captured what I write. Bad idea. So much of my time wasted browsing images. I found the majority of authors use images from the covers of their books. Though I wanted a gorgeous new image, I thought that maybe people who visited my site would think the image was from one of my books and get confused. So I decided to go with one of my cover images.

The color palette. Many paranormal romance authors feature red and black on their sites. Urban fantasy authors use red and black too, or blues, grays, and black. Romance authors have a lot of reds and pinks. While I'm partial to blue, I want my site to stand out. The background image I chose led me to pick from a color palette I never expected. Dark and light browns and golds. Browns? I know, I know, but it looks rich and casts the right atmosphere.

Fonts. I'm still changing my mind about fonts. I'd just have everything in Courier or Times if I had my way. I'm not picky, but a lot of people are really enthusiastic about fonts. Font matters as much as the color palette in creating the right look. So, I've been trying out a ton of them. I like simple and easy to read fonts. I don't like the fancy scripts or very genre specific ones for me. I'll decide on something sooner or later, and it'll likely be in the Courier family.

I've handed my husband all my notes. He'll be programming the new design for me. I just hope he doesn't spend all his summer evenings playing Skyrim and forget about my site!

 

If you have a website or a blog, how much time and consideration did you put into the little things?

Wicked Wednesday - creating an author tagline

I once dedicated Wednesdays to topics dealing with paranormal romance. I've talked about various things that link to it too, but I wanted to keep my focus on that genre since I dubbed it part of my author brand.

Things change. I have a manuscript in consideration by one publisher and another accepted by a second press. Neither of the stories are paranormal romance. So lately, I've been working on changing my author brand. This includes changes to my blog, profile, and my website. (I finally have a new website design, and my husband is in the midst of programming it. Yay!)

One of the most important ways to establish your brand is to have an author tagline. What's this, you ask? An author tagline is a sentence or two (usually no more than 5 to 10 words) that describes who you and your books are. It must be short and attention-grabbing.

This is no easy task. I have enough trouble creating taglines for my books, but for me? Yikes. Where do I even begin?

Here are some tips to help you create your own author tagline:
- Who are you? What's important to you? Not your writing, but you.
- What is your writing like? The genre(s)? Are there any themes? What's your style?
- Focus on what makes you unique.
- Pick about a dozen words that describe you and your writing. (Or 50 like I did!)
- Ask for opinions from other writers, friends, and family. How do others see you and your writing?
- Narrow it down to a few words, play with them together, and come up with various phrases.
- Pick your favorite one, and remember, taglines aren't forever. You can change them, and you most likely will as life goes on.

What's important to me: Family, friends, creativity, and my geeky interests.
What's my writing like: supernatural, dark, witty, twisty, romantic.

I used a thesaurus to produce a bunch of words that I played around with. Here are some of my rejected taglines. Feel free to laugh all you want!
- Otherworldly flirts and courageous spooks.
- Heroes, haunts, and heart.
- Geeks, freaks, and EEKS!
- Flirting with what goes bump in the night.

Horrible, I know. And why was I so focused on alliteration? I had a lot like that.

I wasn't satisfied. So I went back to the drawing board. Or, rather, the crumpled and scribbled upon piece of paper. And I had a good brainstorming session with a fellow writer. (Thanks so much again, Graeme!) I had to accept I could not capture everything about me and my writing in one tagline. That was the hardest thing for me to accept.

What makes me unique: I'm add twists to whatever genre I'm writing, and I'm character driven.

Here is my final choice. Let me know what you think, please!

Paranormal intrigue with a twist.