Erika Dreifus

First, THANK YOU all for the amazing response to last week’s post, in which I solicited your feedback on author photo possibilities. You’re a terrific group!

I’ve now gone ahead and asked the photographer to retouch two photos (as I said, one retouched photo is part of the package I signed up for; I’m going to kick in the extra bucks for a second one). In the meantime, I want to share with you a useful post on author photos that I found. I’ve sent it along to the photographer, too, to explain my request for images with different resolutions.

Other pre-publication activities this past week have included going through a copy-edited version of my manuscript (and if you’re wondering about the use of the hyphen with “copy-edited,” you have a sense of some dilemmas I’ve been facing). I’ve also been following up with the Big Publishing House from which I have been awaiting a permissions response. Important (relearned) lesson here: Sometimes, you really have to pick up the phone. And progress toward a cover design, about which I’ve heretofore said little, continues.

So, that’s what’s been happening with Quiet Americans this week. Thank you all so much, again, for your interest!

So, when we last left our heroine (moi), Author Photo Shoot Day was approaching. It came and it went…well! I have so much admiration for photographer Lisa Hancock, who did some really nice work (I think so, at least!).

You’ve seen some of that work with my new profile picture right here on the blog (if you haven’t noticed it yet, take a look on the right sidebar). But here’s the deal: The photo shoot package includes one complimentary “retouching,” which means I can ask Lisa to retouch one of the 200+ shots at no extra cost. Presumably, that’s the shot I’ll use for the book jacket (and maybe elsewhere, though it’s kind of fun to have a choice of photos to post as a blog profile, Twitter thumbnail, etc.).

I’ve received some good advice from people close to me, but now I’d like to hear what YOU have to say. Here are a few more photos for you to peruse. Which do you suggest I ask Lisa to retouch and use for Quiet Americans? (Or do you think I should go with the one I’m currently using for my blog profile?) Thanks for chiming in–I look forward to your comments!