Writing the Author Bio, Part Two
By Samuel Thomas Nichols, Inland Empire Branch
We continue this from Part One which we ran last month.
The author bio’s may also include pertinent education, achievements, recognitions, or awards that pertain to your genre or subject matter. Winning a league bowling trophy would not be applicable if your genre is Westerns but most definitely so if you’re writing about bowling – or even sports in general.
It’s also a good idea to include something of a personal nature in your author bio to help make a connection with your reader. This could have a serious nature but it could also be something you can have some fun with. In each of the three short bios presented above there are brief allusions to the authors, themselves, as people, and brief is all that’s necessary. You can also further personalize your bio by giving it some of the tone and character found in your writing and, if relevant, indicate how your own personal experience makes you an authority. Take for example Rich Curtin, one of my favorite contemporary authors, who writes mysteries set in and about Moab and the Four Corners area:
Rich Curtin is the author of the popular Manny Rivera Mystery Series. He has spent many enjoyable days and nights hiking, jeeping, rafting, and camping out in the backcountry of the Four Corners area. He is intimately familiar with the canyon country about which he writes, and has been an Amazon Kindle Top-100 Author. He is a retired Executive Vice-President of Southwest Research Institute.
One piece of advice I was given many years ago was; to always have several author bios written and at hand for different purposes and for the different requests you might receive for a bio. Based on that advice, and upon specific bio requests, I keep them filed and available, though not always up to date, in a Scrivener project that includes bios with word counts of <=50, <=150, <=250, and <=500. I was once asked to provide an author bio that was exactly 50 words long. I also keep it on file which, for what it’s worth, is:
Samuel Thomas Nichols is an uprooted Oklahoman who came of age on the south end of the Santa Monica Bay. He is the author of several novels, numerous short stories, poems, songs, and musical compositions. He resides empty-nested with his wife Denise in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains.
In conclusion, when asked to submit an author bio follow the guidelines. When you write an author bio; write in the third person, keep it succinct, make it quotable and memorable, add some personality and, by all means, have fun with it and make it you.