Your favorite "author's profile" pages?

February 23, 2007 4:28 AM

I'm looking for examples of beautiful "author's profile" pages. I'm building a community blog and I want to create good author's profile pages that will really make the authors look good. What websites/publications have good formats and designs I can use as examples?

The authors are all writers looking to publish their first books. So I want to make sure the profiles make them look like experts. Some examples I've come across are

About.com
Harvard Professor

In addition to design, I wouldn't mind some suggestions on what type of info to include. Thanks metafilter!

posted by m2002 to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Well, these two are nifty, but most likely expensively built by the publishers. Just speculation on that, though. Check out Kelly Braffet's and Katharine Noel's sites.

Basic info to include would be background: employment, education, fellowships, prior publications in journals or whatnot, quirkily interesting tidbits like if they raise emu in the Appalachians or something, etc. The same stuff you read in author blurbs on the dust jacket. Why not also get quotes from the authors about why they wrote this first book?

And, unfortunately, it's suspected by many publishing folk that a good-lookin' author is more marketable than her plain cousin--regardless of quality of work. So throw in some photos of your cutest writers.
posted by scratch at 6:32 AM on February 23, 2007

Thanks Scratch! Those are some great suggestions.

The "good looking" author thing sucks too. But I think with enough photoshop anyone can look pretty decent. =)
posted by m2002 at 9:18 AM on February 23, 2007

I've got an inbuilt bias in that the owner of Scarlet Letters (NSFW - so I can't give you a URL, but I'm sure you can find it) is my friend. But she has an eye for design I've always liked, and Scarlet Letters, being a publishing site for independent authors of many kinds, has to do a lot in a little bit of space.

Also, my sweetie, Hanne Blank, has a site she commissioned from Jhames, that was not created by any large publisher (though she certainly works with those at this time).

Obviously, these are not invitations to take the design wholesale and use it as if it were your own, but perhaps it'll give you useful ideas.
posted by kalessin at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2007