Anatomy of an Author Photo: Die Hard Trivia Book

I do try to put careful consideration into which author photo goes on which book.

My author photo for The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles for example, was relatively easy. All I had to do was take a shot of me reading the book with a backdrop from the scene at LGA where Del Griffith (John Candy) and Neal Page (Steve Martin) first meet (at least officially).

So when I was creating my author photo for Yippee Ki-Yay Motherfucker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard I wanted to come up with something that would "speak" to the look and feel of the original Die Hard film, if not the franchise in general.

 Here's what I did for that shot.

1) I used fake blood/paint and splotches of grime onto an undershirt

2) I purchased a Baretta brand BB gun so that I could take the same stance that John McClane (Bruce Willis) takes on several of the more popular versions of the movie poster.

3) I splashed some water onto my face to denote sweat (and even added a few post-photo beads of sweat onto my face)

4) I purchased a Toronto city-scape piece of stock art as well as stock art of explosions and had explosions at the top of the CN Tower. (I figured why not make it a more local/Canadian backdrop since the author is Canadian). I also went with an orange colorized sky like in several of the movie posters. My attempts at creating a multi-colored sky ended up distracting too much from the buildings in the background, so I opted for a single shade of orange.

5) John McClane's skull in a top-hat tattoo isn't visible in the movie posters, and is only seen in fleeting glimpses throughout the movie. But it does appear in a few of the Die Hard 2 promo images. So I added that in.

6) John McClane isn't bald until the later films in the franchise, and he never had facial hair. But I wasn't about to shave or grow back my receding hairline for the photo. And besides, I'm a huge fan of Weird Al, and he's done plenty of parodies over the years without losing that trademark Weird Al mustache.

7) I thought the photo should be framed by something and so went with bits of broken glass, to call out that "Welcome to the Party, Pal!" scene from the film.

8) And though I didn't end up in the same pose as John McClane for the more popular movie posters, I felt that this shot of me (from the out-takes seen below) at least had enough of the trepidation in my eyes to convey something similar to the look Bruce Willis was conveying.

Here are a few of the out-takes from the photo shoot I did in my home office. (I used an Android S21 propped up on my standing desk with a 5 second time delay for the shots, and a small USB ring-light and of course, a green screen tacked in to the ceiling in front of my book cases). I took perhaps a dozen shots.

Putting together an author photo for a specific book can be a lot of fun.

Are you interested in venturing any guesses as to what I'll be doing for the author photo for my 2024 release of Merry Christmas! Shitter was Full! A Trivia Guide to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

Aging Like a Good Cheese Or A Fine Wine

There has been a fun #howhardhasaginghityouchallenge going around on Facebook, and, since curiosity got the best of me, I thought I'd look back at what my first Facebook Profile pic actually was.

LOL, it was the exact same profile pic I had used, consistently, across all social media.

And I didn't change it for 7 years.

Then, in the past few years, it was like I was trying to make up for lost time, because I changed it multiple times.

Apparently, I also lost my shirt in 2014. (In retrospect, maybe that was some sort of thinly laced separation/divorce joke)  ;)

Intersting that I only ever used a photo that wasn't me when Barnaby, reading one of my books, stood in for a short time period.

I thought it might be fun to then look at my author profile page on Facebook and see how many profile pics I'd shared there.

Only 7 changes on my author profile page since I started it up in 2011. About once per year.

I'd started with my very first author photo - one that my buddy Greg Roberts took for me and that I had used for my first book, One Hand Screaming, in 2004. I had also used a few that were a little more "on brand" particularly the smart-ass one with the graveyard backdrop and the latest, the caricature done by the talented Seth Wilks.

Podcast: Optimizing Your Author Brand with Robert J. Sawyer

The latest episode of my Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing podcast features an interview with Canadian science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer.




It's a great conversation where we talk about how Rob was the first science fiction writer to ever have a website and how he made sure to generously apply the keywords Science, Fiction and Writer throughout the site (aptly named SFWriter.com) in order to appear at the top of most keyword search results for people looking for a science fiction writer. (IE, when someone from the media wants to talk to a sci-fi writer about a recent scientific news item)

This (among other author brand exercises) has helped Rob land more than 400 radio and more than 400 television interviews over the years.

Author Branding

I do a lot of talks for authors at conferences in various different cities. One of the things that I share is the importance of the author brand. I ask authors to consider who their target audience might be for their writing and whether or not they have a distinctive author brand that might click with such an audience.

I typically use concepts such as my own use of Barnaby Bones, the "mascot" who attends various author events with me. Barnaby is my personal example of an author brand. I write horror - therefore, the props of tombstones and skulls and a life-sized skeleton create an instantly recognizable and classifiable "brand" that speaks of "Mark Leslie"

And just a few days ago, I took the "author branding" to a more literal level.

I branded myself - my skin - with something quite appropriate for a horror author, when I finally got a tattoo.

It all stems back to the early 1990's when I remember sitting at my desk when I lived on Craig Street in Ottawa. I should have been studying, but instead, I was looking at three things on my desk -- the pencil cup on the edge of my desk, the coffee mug in front of me, and a cool drawing of an eerie skull with flesh melting off of it from one of the small press horror magazines that I was either published in or had ordered a sample copy of/

I ended up combining the skull, the mug and the pencil cup into a single sketch that I quite liked. I later inked the sketch in, enjoying the feel of the piece.

A copy of the original "Skull cup" sketch I had created

But I didn't know what to do with it. When I released my self-published short story collection One Hand Screaming in 2004, I considered using that sketch for the front cover. But my buddy Steve who designed the cover for me, did something much better - so I went with that.

The skull cup sketch sat, like many stories often do, in a drawer.

And it wasn't until I had decided to get a tattoo earlier this year that I realized I could use this. (And it took me several hours of digging around in boxes of my misc creative and writing files to find it)

So this past Friday, I had the tattoo done at Skinners in Hamilton.

I was relieved to learn the tattoo could easily be removed should I change my mind

My appointment was for 2 PM on a Friday - I arrived for the appointment on a bright and sunny afternoon. I was delighted to learn that, should I ever change my mind, there was an easy way to remove the tattoo.

The artist began by shaving my arm with a little Lady Bic razor and then rubbing my arm done with some sort of warm liquid then transferring a stencil from my sketch onto my arm.

The stencil is on. "Look Ma, no pain!"

That was pretty cool and also quite painless.

Then the actual tattooing began. It felt, basically, like a simple and relatively painless needle going into my arm (which, I suppose, is exactly what it is - a needle that is injecting ink into the skin) - the second that it was out, the pain was over. Only, it was followed by another relatively mild pin prick sensation, then another, then another.

Here is the Tattoo outline as completed

Then, once the outlining of the tattoo was completed, the "filling in" of the shadowing and the eyes and nose, etc began. (There was a good 5 minute break while the artist was attending to some other customers - and it gave me a good chance to move my arm around and get the feeling back into my hand - for the procedure, I had to sit with my arm danging straight down and my hand went to sleep being in that position for so long)

The tattoo as complete - is all that red part of the design or just irritated skin?

Admittedly, the series of pin-pricks that accompanied the "filling in" of the "black space" was quite intense - but again, it was just a pin prick, following by another, and another, and another, and another, and another, etc, etc, etc.  To be honest, the numbing feeling of my hand falling asleep was more painful than the tattoo itself. And there was a TV on and which I amused myself by watching from the multiple mirrors set up in the shop, likely for just that purpose.

Then, I was coated in a cream, a bandage was applied and I was given instructions on how to treat it for the next couple of weeks. (Basically, applying a Vitamin A/Vitamin E cream, keeping from submersing it in water for 2 weeks, keeping it out of the sun and keeping the skin lubricated while I go through the process of scabbing and flaking and healing.

Oh no! Blood! ;)

I was a bit surprised when I got home to see that there was quite a bit of blood leaking out from the bandage.  But the next day, when I removed the bandage, it was starting to look good. (Although, sure, there's still a lot of redness around the tat -- and the feeling is more like some sort of sunburn)

The day after tattoo look

In any case, I'm now going through the process of applying the vitamin A/ vitamin E cream multiple times a day and, of course, showing the tattoo off.

But I have to say that this is quite the appropriate tattoo for a horror writer to spot, which the brilliant horror author Jason Brant pointed out in a tweet that day.  (Quick side note for horror fans, if you haven't yet checked out Jason's writing, do yourself a favour and go buy one NOW.....you'll be sorry if you don't)

Tweet by horror author Jason Brant

As Jason says, I'm taking author branding to the extreme.

I suppose I might use some of this in my next "author branding" example.