Profile Pictures - Pros and Cons

What exactly is the deal with profile pictures anyway? I spent several hours of my precious "free" time during the weekend trying to produce (unsuccessfully) an artistic, vaguely aesthetically pleasing picture of myself in order for readers of my writing to see a cheeky (geeky?) mug shot of me in the corner of all my articles and profile pages.

Why? Well, I have been reliably informed that in order to be taken more seriously as a writer, readers like to know "who" they are reading. Now, I understand the nature of curiosity, but really, does knowing what the author of a novel looks like make it a better novel? Does the writing take on a whole new complexion if there is a nice smiley picture of the writer on the inside cover?

The obvious answer is, NO! However we live in a very fickle and fearful world, especially in the "faceless" universe of the internet and so we are told that a picture of the author helps a reader build trust and confidence in their work and produces a more professional slant to ideas and opinions that are shared within the words.

Although there are famous portraits and sculptures that are believed to be in the very likeness of Mr William Shakespeare himself, it's fair to say that no soul living today really knows what he looked like. I think you will find he is still a pretty popular author, even amongst the "online" generation who don't particularly seem to be clamouring for The Bard's profile picture!

On the other hand, in an age of ever increasing identity theft and internet scams we are advised by authorities to keep our personal information as private as possible. Will your profile picture end up on someone's fake passport in some distant third world country?

Will someone steal the picture of your gorgeous self (ahem!) and use it on another website as their own profile picture and who really knows (except people you already know personally or if you are famous) that the profile picture posted is really you?

Is it all smoke and mirrors anyway? Will a profile picture really help you get a few more reads, a few more visits to your websites and pages? Are there more pros than cons because there certainly seem to be more questions than answers.

I suppose it calls for an experiment, so expect to find a somewhat blurry image of my very self in an article coming to a searchwarp near you soon!