Today I want to talk to you about your bio. When you become an author, there will be many occasions when you will be asked for your bio. You’ll need to include a bio when you are quoted in someone else’s book, invited to speak at a conference or another venue, scheduled to do a book signing, interviewed by a blogger or radio host or when you submit an article or story, for example.
The first few times I was asked for my bio, I found it difficult to write. How does one encapsulate his or her professional persona in a brief few lines? What is most important to include?
Since then, I’ve provided hundreds of bios for a variety of purposes and I’ve requested bios from people I’m working with on different projects. Here are some pointers to guide you in writing your bio the next time someone requests it:
1: Keep to the number of lines or words requested. If someone asks for one or two lines or thirty words, do not write a hundred-word description of your accomplishments.
2: Keep it simple. Avoid using words that are just going to get in the way of what you really want readers to know. “Award-winning,” repeated before every achievement is generally not necessary and can become cumbersome. If your bio is confusing, people won’t give it a second read.
3: Make sure the bio make sense—that the sentences are complete and accurate. Some authors tend to write run-on sentence after run-on sentence to get in everything they want to say in.
4: Give contact information, but don’t overdo it. Generally, your main website URL is enough. I’ve seen authors forget to provide contact information and I’ve seen others include three or four website and email addresses.
5: Use the information that is most pertinent to the particular audience. Will this audience be most interested in the fact that you are the author of several novels, that you have won some awards, that you are the president of a writers group, that you write stories for several online sites, that you are an editor and book coach? Do they want to know the titles of your books? Unless you have space to include all of what you do and have accomplished and you can do it succinctly, choose just those things that matter most to this particular audience.
If you are an author or plan to become one, or if you write for publications, present workshops, etc., you will be required to write a bio at some point in your career. Make sure it represents you in the best light and that also means that it is well-written.
Patricia Fry is a career writer who supported herself for many years writing articles for magazines. She currently has 35 books to her credit, most of them related to publishing and book promotion. Patricia is the Executive Director of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) http://www.spawn.org. Check out her latest pair of books, Publish Your Book and Promote Your Book at http://www.matilijapress.com