Writing A Bio That Attracts Readers

My co-author Brad Tesh and I just spent a year writing a self-help book entitled "Invisible Me". The writing was fun, the editing was - well, not fun, but not too much work, either. Formatting it was not too bad - we used the Kindle Create app. What was really difficult for me was writing my author bio. I wanted to do more than list my published work. I also wanted to do more than talk about my cats! I finally did get something up, but I am not happy with it. So I decided to see what the Internet had to say about writing an author bio.

First we need to look at why an author bio is so important that I am pulling what is left of my hair out. Most of us are not known authors, so we need to build credibility to attract an audience. If we write in multiple genres, as I do, I wonder if we need to tweak our bios for each genre, as the target audience will be different. I think that we do, as the quality and impact of our author bio does impact sales. 

We need to show that we know about our subject, and we need to do this in an interesting manner (or our potential audience will quickly move on). Including a link to our website is a given. Including already published work is a fine line - it needs to be done in a manner in which we get the names out there, but don't make too big a show out of it. It is a good idea to include our writing experience, any pertinent education that we have, and any writers organizations that we belong to. We want to include a few pieces of information about ourselves that will be of interest to our prospective audience - like the cats that own me, and the fact that I both read and write all of the time!

We also need to keep it short. (Don't even ask me all that I had to cut out of our bios for the print version of Invisible Me"!) How short is short? One paragraph (250 words) to place on the back of your book or for promotional purposes, and a full page bio for your website.

Bios read best if written in the third person. It is also easier for me to write my bio in the third person, because I don't feel that I am bragging about myself. We also need to remember that as we grow as authors, our bios should grow to reflect the new us. 

Bottom line: write a bio that reflects who you are, and what your writing is all about.

(c) March 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the author.