Smile please!

So – this is the new me. 

My official brand spanking new author photo which is to appear on the jacket of the German hardback edition of  my debut. ( Recipes for Melissa is to be called “Fur alle tage die noch kommen” over there….which means “For all the days to come”.)

Oh Gawd!  Can’t tell you how much I agonised/panicked over this. As soon as the email popped into my inbox via my agent, I was in meltdown. A new author  photo?  For a book jacket? Seriously?

Now - for someone who worked for twenty years in television, I must confess that I am surprisingly uneasy when it comes to having my photograph taken. Especially as the years roll sneakily by!

The truth is I always worked in live news as a reporter and presenter and the beauty of live television is you don’t actually have to watch yourself.

Not that I’m ungrateful – mind. It is, of course, hugely exciting to me to think of any publisher wanting to put my mug on a book jacket …but, all the same,  the pressure of my very first  “author photo”? What does an author headshot even look like? What pose? What outfit?

I decided to boost my chances of success  by booking a slot quickly with a lovely and very talented local photographer in Devon called Claire Tregaskis. I gave her the brief. “I just  need to look like someone who might write”…

I booked a haircut. I tried on a zillion outfits. I posed and smiled and Claire, to her credit, displayed the patience of a saint – especially as I was worried that smiling too widely would make me look too piggy eyed. “Bigger smile, Teresa” she kept saying. “I’ll have no eyes,” I moaned. 

In the end, we did just fine. Smiling and yet eyes not too piggy for an old bird. A medal to Claire. Whether or not I look like an author, I have no idea. But the German publisher seems happy.

Phew

• ·  By the way RECIPES FOR MELISSA can be pre-ordered for Kindle from my UK publisher now at discounted price of just 99p  CLICK HERE (No author photo!! Double phew)
• PS Just heard this week that the novel has also sold to Korea....my sixth country! I'm wondering now just how far this photo may get to travel :)

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