A typical mistake made by novice authors, both of articles and books, is found in penning their often underestimated author bio. This is an opportunity for your readers to know who you genuinely are and why you were motivated to write your book or your article. It also tells them what sets you apart from other writers of the same genre and why they should pick your work rather than another.
Not only are bios frequently dull. They are pretty regularly written merely once and then reused for various articles or books with no common thread. Each work merits its own well-crafted author biography. Unlike a bio for articles, which you can indeed repurpose if the articles’ theme coalesces, a biography for a novel should be specific to the novel itself. In today’s article, I will reveal why this is so significant and how to craft your best-ever bio every single time you are in need of one.
Your bio may be one of the main things your reader is presented to help them determine whether they should buy your book or not. This is particularly true when your biography is situated on the book cover.
Therefore, you should consider this as your first date with your upcoming reader. If you need a second date (or to look further), don’t offer your tedious resume. As with a compelling overview, write with the end result in mind. If you were struggling to get a job as a sales clerk, you wouldn’t describe the experiences you had as a dancer. So, when penning things about you, consider pulling in particulars about your specific book. Write it as if it were a non-fiction story, one that makes readers want to find out more about your work and you.
Here are some suggestions on how to improve your author bio.
- Start prepared: Discover what past events were when you were growing up or born. Include something of historical note. This will allow the reader to place your historical influencers and relate to you better. A quick Google search will show recorded events circling your year and even day of birth. T
- Define your preference for writing. What encouraged you to write when you first started writing? Your reader wants to know, so share with them. Keep it quick but inspired. Follow up this short detail with the following suggestion.
- Explain why you wrote ‘this’ novel. How did you get to the point that you considered the need to pen the book you poured your life into? What events caused you to want to pen it in the first place. If you have the life experience or education that you want to include, this is the only time to do so.
- Conversation: This is your opportunity to really ‘talk’ to your reader. Pull them in by using an informal conversational tone in your bio, rather than just preachy or informational. If there was someone who pushed you to complete this manuscript, you could add it here.
- Pull the reader into the tale. At this point, you will want to talk about the story in your bio that will attract your reader to open your book and read. Keep it small. Don’t randomly give away the climax; just lure them with a warning or tip of what is to come.
- Talk about something personal. Where do you live, who are you, are you dating, do you have kids, or are you working somewhere? This is your opportunity to write something that will help your reader relate to you on an individual level. Give them a small glimpse into your private life, not your whole life story. One sentence is all you need.
If you replicate the steps we covered above, your author bio will be complete and compelling. And remember to re-do rather than repurpose your author bio if the genre of your book or article changes.
