APPEARANCE + PERSONALITY MATTERS

Let me start by offering huge congratulations to successful author and reader of this blog, Daniel Blythe? Why? Well, partly because he sent me the link that is going to inspire this post. And partly because I see that his newest book, Autonomy, is .... sound the trumpets .... No 1 in Tesco! Hooray in spades! (NB - that's a link to the live chart and the trouble with being No 1 is that ultimately there's only one way to go, but he WAS No 1 in Tesco and that's more than I can say.)

Now, this well-deserved success of Daniel's got me thinking about the link that he'd sent me a while back, suggesting I blog about it. And, though he didn't say so, I'm guessing he imagined I'd blog about it in a crabbit way, throwing my hands up in horror and in support of the irritated Guardian reviewer who wrote the article. (Sorry, can't see the name of the writer.)

Go and read it if you haven't already, and then come back.

Are we talking about the appalling prospect of books being sold / reviewed on the basis of how good-looking their authors are? Which would be, clearly, an appalling prospect. If it was the prospect. As the author of the piece points out, none of the books offered on the basis of author videos was reviewed, for one reason: they weren't good enough.

Or are we talking about marketing people using any angle to get books noticed even if the angle is tacky? Which is, er, not very surprising. Nor new. I'm pretty sure that Byron overcame some of his badness, madness, and dangerousness with more than a hint of Byronic gorgeousness. Frankly, anything that can get an author noticed will be used.

Thing is, I think the author of the piece was over-reacting a bit. First, the authors are described by their publishers in terms such as "endearing, intelligent and attractive" and "very personable". For all we know, the "very personable" one was personable solely because of a charming smile, with no other classically beautiful features. Now, I don't have a charming smile: I have a twisted one and an asymmetrical face because I had my jaw joint removed, but I don't have a problem with those who do have charming smiles having attention drawn to them, because I'd hope instead to score in the "endearing and intelligent" stakes, or possibly the "serious and piercing" or even "blonde" (it costs me to maintain, but blonde I can do reasonably well).

With all respect to my fellow members of the Society of Authors, who are all published authors, a rather large number of us do not fall into the obviously gorgeous category. Yet we manage to be published.

Also, as one of the commenters on the piece says (and the comments are worth reading), no one was saying the authors were "young and beautiful". Even the word "attractive" can mean many different things. And very definitely depending on the beholder. An "attractive" author can mean all manner of interesting and various things. As we all know, attractive does not have to mean picture-postcard perfect. Plastic surgery is absolutely not required or desired.

Seems to me we all do whatever it takes to create an "appealing" public persona, especially in this visual age and born as we are into a visually-biased species, and if "dark and sexy" fairly describes you, then what do I care if your publisher says that? Our websites give a whole load of info that you'd think no one would really want to know and which on the face of it has no bearing on our books - how interested are you in the fact that I love anchovies, for example? Well, my website gives you that info. You can ignore it if you want. You'd be surprised how many people find it fascinating - so fascinating that when I removed it and other silly stuff, a school teacher complained that there was no "personal" info for her pupils to use for a project.

When I read someone's work, I confess I am interested in who they are - how old, male or female, something about their background, why they write. Doesn't make me listen more or less, but I'm interested. I don't want them to be perfect, just human. They are talking to me, after all, and I like to know who is talking to me. I read the little biogy bits at the front of books; I am hungry for author info.

Which brings me to our hero, Daniel. (Apologies, D - I didn't warn you about this! You can get me back on Facebook, if you like. Besides, it's a small price to pay to see your latest book plugged, wouldn't you say?)

See, as all good authors do, and especially authors for young people, Daniel has a website. From which we are to learn the things he wishes us to learn about him. He will have selected the info in order to portray a certain picture - no doubt a true one, but it won't be a complete one. He does this not, I presume, because we might fall in love with him (I should warn you that DB has a wife and kids and he is presumably precious to them, so hands off, please, blog-readers) but because he'd like us to read his books and he thinks (rightly, imho) that the more we know about him, within reason, the more we might do so.

On his website we learn all sorts of things, many of which have nothing to do with whether the words in his books are any good. There's his wife and two kids, the fact he lives near Sheffield - let's hope he has real electricity, unlike poor Jane Smith. He is younger than me - the bastard. (Does this make me not want to read his books? Nah, I'm bigger than that.) He likes tea. And he lives in a place which some people think was the birthplace of Robin Hood. Yeah, right. He got an annoying number of O-levels and A-levels, speaks a ridiculous number of languages and went to the wrong university. Am I beginning to hate him? Well .... No, of course not. I am beginning to know him, or at least that part of him he wishes me to know, which is fair enough. And probably far enough.

As to whether he's good looking or not - well, a) that's for his wife to say b) we don't care and c) I would hate to embarrass him further. He looks personable, relaxed, on holiday. He's wearing shades so either a) he's got something wrong with his eyes b) he's very cool c) it was a sunny day or d) any combination of the above.

Thing is, what we know is that Daniel has a personality and, being human, we respond to that. Of course, we could be being deceived; everything on his website could be a lie. In which case, way to go, Daniel!

So, I disagree with the Guardian blogger. I respect the viewpoint but I disagree. I do want to know something about the authors whose books I read. Including what they look like, not to judge their attractiveness but to begin to connect.

Which reminds me. Must go and buy Autonomy. But not from Tesco, if you don't mind - I'd like to see it No 1 in my local independent. Vanessa - do you have it? If not, why not? He's good-looking, for crying out loud.