Before we went away for Christmas, I cleaned off a few shelves in my office. One of them was the shelf on which I keep copies of my own books. Making the obvious decision that to keep more than one copy of any book on that shelf was using up prime real estate, I piled the extra copies on the floor. When the pile fell over, I noticed the photos on the backs of many of them: I noticed that I seemed to have used the same head shot for several. This started me wondering if they were at all important (and if I should have one more professional one taken).
I want to start this discussion by finding out if any of my fellow readers & writers have given much thought to these photos and the accompanying bio. So…before I continue to write, I offer my completely unscientific poll to any reader inclined to weigh in before I tell you the back story of those author photos on my covers.
[This poll refers only to non-fiction selections: I’ll get to the fiction one in due course!]
Patricia J. Parsons 
Jodi Picoult has my least favorite author photo ever. Probably because she has curly, red hair like me and I’m instantly jealous, but also because she always takes these ridiculous photos of herself. BLAH. So yes, important to me, just a bit.
Thanks for getting the discussion started! I personally think that as readers we’re influenced more than we might care to admit. As writers, my view is that we think less about our own photos than perhaps we should. More to come…