understand the importance of your author photo, it means that you can ensure you take a great one, and use this tool as a powerful advantage. In this chapter, I’ll go through some examples of author photos, both good and bad, so you can see what this looks like in practice, and then walk you through exactly how to ensure you get a great author photo for your book. THE AUTHOR PHOTO RULE THAT RULES THEM ALL There are many different ways to take an effective author photo, and one overarching rule when it comes to author photos (or any profile photo): Know what you want to signal to which audience, and then signal it properly. This is the key to everything with photos. The author photo for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company should be totally different from the author photo for an up-and-coming comedian. Why? Because they are signaling different things to different groups. Generally speaking, the CEO’s author photo should signal profes- sionalism, effectiveness, reliability, and trust. The comedian’s photo could be wacky, goofy, or even pensively serious, all depending on the comedic style they want to signal. To make sure you’re taking the right author photo, you need to ask yourself two questions: 1. WHAT AM I TRYING TO SIGNAL WITH MY PHOTO? You say just as much with your appearance as you do with your 268 · ThE SCriBE METhOD