Learn how to write an author bio.

Please welcome author Nicolas Frame with some good advice on writing your first author bio.

It’s an invigorating feeling, receiving one’s first acceptance letter from an editor. We want your piece. Yay! Pop the champagne cork, and put a party hat on your cat. But at the end of that email, you’ll usually realize they want you to provide an author bio.

This can be horrifying, and we authors often fret more over writing our bios than our stories. After all, stories are fictional. Our author bios are supposed to tell the world who we are and about our writing. It can be intimidating to think so introspectively.

Whether you’ve actually received that acceptance letter or you’re just getting your bio ready in anticipation (good for you for being prepared!), the following should help you understand what you might want to include and avoid in your author bio.

Writing Your Author Bio

It’s difficult to craft an author bio when it will accompany your first published piece. What can you say about your writing? They’ll know you’re nothing more than a first-time amateur, right? Relax. It’s actually a great opportunity for you to showcase yourself as an author.

Author bios are really no different than any other type writing, except you must think of yourself as the main character. And you want to market this character. Think about how your friends might describe you or how you might introduce yourself to someone at a networking event (because, you know, we all go to such things). What are some major parts of your life that you don’t mind the general public knowing about you?

What’s your long-term goal as a writer? Do you have a novel in the works? What genre do you want to be known for? These are just a few basic questions to consider. It’s also perfectly okay to tie in some personal facts like where you live, how many cats you own, whether you’re married, and what your day job is. You are by no means obligated to include any or all of these details. The only rule for an author bio, and it’s more of a guideline, is to make sure you are writing an author bio. What you include should focus on who you are as a writer, not what you’d share in your personal Facebook or Twitter profile.

Things to Include in Your Author Bio

Talk about why you’re qualified as a writer. If you wrote a story about being a long-haul truck driver and you have held this as your day job for the last eight years, that’s worth noting.

Take this opportunity to really sell yourself as an author. You may have heard it before, but I’ll tell you again anyway: Everything you write, from emails to editors to your bio to your actual stories, showcases you as an author. Think of your bio as a bonus addition to your published pieces that you can use to show how skilled or talented you are.

Check out other authors’ bios for ideas. Do some make you laugh? What was funny? Are some lame? Why? If you notice trends, make note of them. For example, authors with a lot of publication credits will often only mention the most notable ones. This will be useful when you start racking up the acceptance letters.

It doesn’t hurt to have a current, professional headshot ready to include upon request.

Finally, be sure to include a link to your website or blog.

Things to Avoid in Your Author Bio

One thing to avoid, especially in your first bio, is mentioning that this is your first publication.

Also avoid mentioning anything you might regret later. Your bio will be burned into permanent existence in print or on the Internet. Remember that before you crack jokes about your in-laws, talk about how you write at work when you should be working, or shout out that hottie you’ve been dating for a few weeks.

Be careful when mentioning dates or specific timelines. For example, it’s better to write, “She hopes to have her sci-fi novel completed soon” instead of “She hopes to have her sci-fi novel completed in 2014.” Dates come and go. If you miss your own deadline you’ll look unprofessional.

Stay away from spammy paragraphs drowning in links to every social media account you have. Focus on showcasing one or two links (at most), which you update regularly and are related to your writing. In other words, keep it relevant.

Multiple Versions of Your Author Bio

You’ll eventually need to craft multiple versions of your author bio. Some publishers want bios under a certain word count. Others want serious and professional bios only. Sometimes you will have to make a judgment call about whether to send off a tell-all or a humorous one-liner. You’ll also want a lengthier version for your author website or blog.

A great technique to use when approaching your bio is to create a long version, in the third-person of course, and then when you submit your work to agents or editors, you can take the bits that fit that particular submission or publication best. If you’re sending a romance story, you’ll probably want to edit out the parts about you being a single person with nine cats. However, if you were submitting to a humor column, the editor and readers might find owning nine cats an appropriate chuckle-worthy addition.

Ready to Write Your Bio?

One final note: revise! After you craft a great bio that brands you as a writer of a specific genre and that markets your website to readers and mentions your newly purchased hairless Sphinx cat, you’ll be ready to send it off. Don’t. Wait a day or two and revisit it. You’ll likely find a few things that can be restated more succinctly or unnecessary redundancies that can be eliminated.

About the Author: Nicolas Frame is an author of short fiction, nonfiction articles, and some poetry.