Author Bios

I hate, hate talking about myself. Anytime someone asks me a personal question, I either grunt out a one-syllable answer or go out of my way to downplay any of my accomplishments. I do know where this problem originated. In fact, I can still hear my mother's voice chiding me for "bragging". I must have innocently done it once as a little kid and she set me straight in a hurry. I never again dared to admit I'd done anything well. 

Thus, writing my author bio should have been an excruciating exercise, but I write under a pen name, which allows me to imagine I'm talking about a different person. 

A beginning author might feel he or she has little to tell, unless they majored in something writing or literature related in college (I didn't attend college). Maybe they had a short story published in one of those obscure magazines that no one but contributors read. That could count. (I don't write short stories; at least, not intentionally.) 

Well, that's where "expansion" comes in. My author bio is technically true; I haven't made up any facts. Did I embellish them? A bit. 

While I have been a music blogger for several years, "music blogger" can mean a person with influence in the music industry or it can mean someone who's written music blog posts for fourteen years and still has only a handful of followers.

I do edit an online music magazine, but I'm the only "employee", and as far as I know, no one has ever visited the site.

Yes, I'm a songwriter and a singer and part of a band, and one of our tracks has garnered over a thousand plays on Spotify; thus "thousands of plays". (It is technically more than one thousand). And yes, our music is featured in music libraries (for all that's worth).

I began my bio with a brief sentence about where I was raised, where I live now, the fact that I'm married and have kids, and that I have a cat (her name is listed for personalization purposes). 

The last paragraph of my bio talks about the type of stories I write, as well as a common theme that all my main characters share:

April Tompkins* grew up on the prairies of North Dakota and now lives in Minnesota with her husband and her cat Sasha. She is the mother of two strong men.

She is not only an author, but an accomplished songwriter and singer, whose independent albums have garnered thousands of plays on Spotify and are featured in music libraries. She is also the creator and editor of a digital music magazine and has been a music blogger since 2007.

In her writing universe, April’s characters are not as uncomplicated as they seem. Everyone has a story, but it may take some coaxing to get them to tell it.

*April Tompkins is a pen name. All other details are true.

Another tack one can take is to include a bit of self-deprecating humor, if that's something you're adept in. Perhaps talk about a hobby but show that you are not very good at it. Something like, "She is an avid cook and most of her creations are actually edible." (not a good example, but that's just off the top of my head).

Obviously, if your books center around something you're an expert in, you would want to state that.

As you can see from my bio, I have no writing credits other than my self-published books, but those are self-evident. I could have listed the number of books I've published, but then I'd have to keep updating my bio, and I'm happy with it the way it is.

A good author bio should be a mix of professional and personal. You want to come across as a human, not a bot. And don't be shy about adding descriptive words. You're a writer, after all. I could have written that I grew up in North Dakota, but "the prairies of North Dakota" is a big more poetic.

If like me, you're uncomfortable talking about yourself, pretend you're describing someone else. Or mimic the embellishment involved in a job resume. Sure, a resume lists job skills, but it pumps up the applicant's abilities by using action words. "Facilitated" could mean you developed a new work process or you took over a meeting once when the organizer got sick. You know how resumes go.

A bio isn't completely necessary, but it's certainly a nice addition to your book's back matter and it humanizes you to the reader. And if you have a website, a bio is a vital element or why have a site at all?

The first bio I wrote was very short and really told nothing about me. I probably needed it for one site or another, so I dashed one off quickly. It wasn't until I established my website that I got serious about writing a good one. It's natural to take more than one swipe at it until you come up with one you're happy with. And remember, a bio can always be modified if you get a new flash of inspiration.