How many covers do I have that are self portraits?

The other day someone on Instagram asked me how many self portraits of mine have been published on book covers, as they are on of my better selling images.

I had NO idea so I trawled through and realised I had just passed the 100 mark! (I’m missing only a couple from my below grid, I couldn’t find a decent size without it just looking like a few pixels!) Also I know a couple of others have sold that I haven’t found yet so it could be more at this moment in time. Anyway,

101!

I have to say, a little swell of pride happened when I realised this. It’s only been 4 years of doing this so it’s a big thing for me to be able to say. It’s also pretty cool because my face and work have graced some pretty famous covers and authors alike. Like James Patterson, Isabelle Allende, Liana Hunt, Sandra Brown, Jodi Picoult, Sherrilyn Kenyon and even Ryan Graudin. Now I know not everyone are big readers but I am so having my work let alone my self portraits on these book covers is awesome to me.

It also goes to show that self portraits can indeed make you a decent photography income and it’s always worth a shot if you’re starting out in the book cover photography world and don’t have access to models immediately or are too nervous to ask people to model at first.

I found it gets easier to approach and ask people after doing self portraits because you have a mental catalogue of poses you can ask of them and you know what works, I call it my safety net, including poses, costumes and locations.

Actually as part of my Breaking into book covers online course where I cover every single step on how to become a successful book cover photographer one of my students messaged me to let me know she’d had her first sale (in record time I might add!) and it was a self portrait! It was such an awesome message to get!