What is it with writers wearing black leather jackets in their author photos?

I first noticed this phenomenon last August. I needed to have a new author photo taken and—never one to reinvent the wheel—I pulled a bunch of books off the shelves and looked at recent author photos for ideas. Hmmm. Black leather jacket. Black leather jacket. Oh, look; she’s wearing a black leather jacket. Male authors wear them, too, but middle-aged romance writers seem particularly attracted to them. I guess they figure a black leather jacket makes them look young, sexy, edgy, successful. Nice image. When did it become a cliché?

I’m writing about this because my copy of RWR arrived in the mail today. I flipped it over, and there was a full-page ad for a NYT bestelling author’s new book, complete with a photo of the NYT bestselling author wearing…you guessed it, a black leather jacket. It was good for a laugh.

Please don’t hate me if you’re an author and you wore a black leather jacket for your author photo shoot. But when I finally get around to having my new author photo taken, I think I’ll wear something else. Something different, like maybe a tweed jacket.

No, wait; Dan Brown beat me to it.