When Hannah got in touch about shooting a headshot photo for her new book (whoop!! mega excitement right there), the first thing I asked her was: so, what’s your book about?

A good headshot isn’t simply a picture of your face; when someone looks at your author headshot, they’ll be making judgements in those first few split-seconds about who you are, what the tone of your writing is, and even what sort of topic your book is about.

Are you friendly? Professional? Serious? A comedian? Into nature / food / technology? All of these assumptions will bleed through your headshot, through elements like your facial expression, your hands, pose, background, colour palette… which is why marrying up your style of book with who you are – and the image you want to project as an author – is really important for your author headshot.

Hannah’s new book, The Education of Ivy Edwards, falls into “commercial women’s fiction” (think: Fleabag!!), so we wanted to get across elements of friendliness, openness, warmth, cheekiness, modernity… hopefully those vibes come across in a subtle way from Hannah’s photos!

Hannah’s book launches in May 2020 – The Education of Ivy Edwards by Hannah Tovey – and can be pre-ordered here!! I can’t wait to get my copy and celebrate this incredible new author – it’s such a huge achievement to land your first book deal, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come…