Attention Authors

I was browsing around the internet about five seconds ago when I came across a picture of the author Dave Eggers.

According to my own personal tastes, as well as the opinion of both friends and professional book critics, Dave Eggers writes good books. He is also involved in some sort of extremely long, hardbound journal called McSweeneys, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I find no reason why people would want a quarterly book delivered to their door which is basically just a long magazine with no pictures. I guess hipsters who don't like to read novels and can't risk having someone at a party bring up the topic of an unopened War and Peace. I see people who proudly display their entire McSweeneys collection on a bookshelf also having their Holy Bible hollowed out to accomodate a bag of weed and a few hits of ecstasy.

Anyway, as much as I like what Mr. Dave is doing with his writing career, he is falling to the trap that many authors fall into, which is the trap of looking like a douche in their author photos. When I read a book, the narrative style makes me form my own picture in my head about who the author is. Do they smoke menthol cigarettes? Do they like to watch amateur hockey? How many monkeys in their immediate vicinity triggers the emotional transition from amusement to fear? I also paint a picture of what I want this author to look like. Then I conclude the book, and all my hopes are dashed, and I am faced with the face of a douche.

Here are some authors who wrote good, or if not good at least popular, books and also happen to look like douches:


Not all authors look like douches in their photos. There is the "holy trinity" of badass looking authors, and they are as follows:




So if you're an author and you want to have your picture taken and you don't want to look like a douche, wait until you're old, give it some dramatic lighting, and write a book about fishing and killing things.