Your headshot is an essential component of your brand that will be used to help launch and promote your new book. It is imperative that it is high quality since it quite literally represents you to your audience.
Here are just a few of the places it may be used:
- Back of book cover
- Social Media Profiles
- Social graphics for book promotion
- Amazon Listing
- Events
- Speaking Engagements
- Sponsorships
We recommend that you use a professional photographer. They will be experienced at capturing the best shot, helping you pose and providing some guidance on what to wear.
Many publishers and event producers will reject images of insufficient quality, so it’s important to have this taken care of in advance to save yourself a headache.
Photos should be:
- High Resolution – 300DPI
- Minimum of 3 inches x 3 inches
- Focused on the face and shoulders
Make sure to keep a copy of the original edited file from your photographer. It’s a great idea to put this file in a media kit that is ready to go with other assets you will commonly share for book promotion. Photos pulled from social media or other websites are usually of insufficient quality for printing since they are compressed to a smaller size for faster web viewing.
We have put together a few do’s and don’ts below to help guide you to the best headshot for your book launch.
Do:
- Focus on the shoulders up
- Use a soft, non-distracting background
- Have a welcoming or friendly facial expression
- Ensure clear, crisp, professional image quality
Don’t:
- Take from too far away
- Use a distracting background
- Use low-quality, blurry, or pixelated images
- Use “selfie’s.”–They do not convey a tone of professionalism
Headshot Examples:
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