Author Profiles

Naturally every author needs a public profile. What should this consist of?
First and perhaps foremost: a photograph or representative image. Many, but by no means all, readers like to have an idea of who wrote the book.A short biography of who they are. Past and present information is helpful to readers. Where they come from; brief history of what the journey to their present life has been; details of who they are now; etc. Some explanation of what brought them to write in the first place: driving desire; story or stories they feel must be told; sharing knowledge; wishing to help others in some way; etc.Contact links/information. Some readers like to interact with the author, especially if they have become a favourite.Where the reader may find more information about them and their books: website; blog, social media accounts etc. Most professionals/experts advise authors to have a ‘landing page’ for each of their books so that anyone interested would not have to click through various links to get to the information. Most would probably not bother to follow such a path; they want immediate access.
For most this, though time consuming, is relatively easy.  However, there are a few of us for whom it is not straightforward.
In my own case I consider it necessary, for the protection of others, to retain anonymity. Why? So far my books have been autobiographical and recount some very unpleasant and cruel treatment. Whether they deserve it or not, I do not wish to be responsible for the perpetrators, their relatives, descendants or friends to suffer mistreatment or embarrassment. I have had enough of that in my own life. Of course, I also wish to protect my own family. Therefore, there are limitations as to what I may make public. Even my new, soon to be published, novel contains elements based upon actual events.
The primary draw back for me is that I cannot post any actual photographs of myself or my relatives. Also, because I have been well known by many and easily identified from some descriptions, I have had to withhold or change the names of locations.
To this end I have developed an author profile that I hope easily identifies me without giving anything personal away. I have tried a few different ones but have finally settled on the one you see here. Regular visitors to this blog and my social media sites will note, I have just changed my profile image to this. Some will also be aware I have used it for a while on a few social media sites. This was all part of my experimentation. From now on I intend to only use this image wherever I am and all future books will be published under this banner.
Though reasonably obvious and straight forward, I hope the information I give above, about what is required in an author profile, will help some.
I particularly wished to let you know about the change of profile image so that there will be no confusion as to the fact it is still me who is sharing with you.