While your author bio is about you, it’s not for you. Your bio is really for readers who want to get to know you and promoters who want to sell you to their audience.
I strongly recommend you have a short version and a long version of your professional writer bio.
(If you’re the reader saying, Wait! I’m new to this. I don’t have anything to put on my bio. Yes, you do. Furthermore, writing your bio now is actually going to help you begin working through some subconscious blocks, so writing a professional bio now will actually expedite your career.)
Let’s break down the functionality and best practices of a SHORT BIO.
Short bios are for people interviewing you, writing about you, or promoting your event. You want to give them something to quickly copy and paste into their promo materials or read as an introduction before you come on stage/podcast/etc.
- Write in 3rd person. This makes the bio easy to incorporate into promo materials others are writing about you.
- Post at the top of your ABOUT ME page on your website. This allows the person researching you to immediately, and easily find the info they need. Subconsciously the interviewer feels like you are easy to work with and a good partner for whatever it is you are doing together.
- Include relevant contact info (like your website) at the bottom. Yes, it feels redundant to list my website in the bio, especially when the person is finding it on my website—but again the point of this bio is to make things as easy as possible for the person promoting you. Having your contact info as the final part of your bio allows them to easily copy and paste your accurate info into their piece.
- Keep it short. 150 words or three paragraphs max. Include natural breaks where the interviewer can organically shorten the bio. With my short bio (shown below) an interviewer could easily use the first, second, or third paragraph as a standalone. They could also mix and match using two of the three paragraphs, depending on if they are interviewing me as a writer or a coach.
Jessica Conoley empowers creatives & creates stories.
Jessica Conoley is a writer, intuitive, coach, & speaker. She writes fiction and non-fiction; often focusing on themes of individual’s learning to own their power. A certified life and business coach, she helps writers, artists, and musicians follow their intuition into mentally healthy, paying careers.
Jessica founded The CE Coaches to help creatives learn how to build their businesses in an emotionally, and materially. sustainable manner. She teaches how our personal body of creative work unlocks individual intuitive guidance, allowing us to step into our full creative power and highest potential. Her specialty is helping creatives own their worth, increase confidence, & savor the reality of living their dreams.
Learn more at jessicaconoley.com & thececoaches.com. For rights inquiries contact Lucy Cleland at Frances Goldin Lit.
There are two reasons to have a LONG BIO.
First, readers love a good origin story. If people want to deep dive into your past and really get to know you the long bio is a great starting point. (It can also save interviewers some research time.) I write my long bio in first person which helps readers feel like they know me more intimately.
The second reason is more selfish and entirely practical. The longer your career gets the harder it is to remember what and when we did something. Your long bio can serve as a narrative log you can go back to and refresh your memory about your personal timeline. (After fifteen years in the industry I need the help remembering I can get. I shudder to think of how back it will be at forty years in.)
For an example, you can see how I post my long bio at the bottom of my ABOUT PAGE here.
Write your bio immediately. This allows you to subconsciously take ownership of your title of professional creative and quietly expands your comfort zone into a public persona.
One of the biggest mindset hurdles I see in creatives at all stages of their career, is a desire to stay invisible as a person, yet have their work be wildly successful. If you are this creative, you are sending mixed messages—both to yourself and to potential business partners.
Agents, publishers, bookstores, movie-studios and anyone else who wants to help you make money off your writing are looking for partners who will publicly promote the project. You make yourself more desirable as a business partner when you have a willingness to talk about your creative process and work publicly.
If the thought of stepping in front of a microphone or getting your picture taken makes you cringe, you are completely normal. Moving beyond our comfort zone is terrifying. But with each tiny step beyond your comfort zone each new experience gets less scary. Writing your bio is a tiny step that shows your subconscious it is safe to consider being a public author.
If you aren’t sure what to put in your bio, pick three things you could talk about forever.
They don’t have to be personal. They could even be considered superficial. (I would choose: cats, energy, and stickers.) All they need to do is be genuine so that the person who also loves those things knows you are their creative. It also gives an interviewer somewhere to start building rapport with you.
Update your long & short bios once a year.
Your career changes. Your creative vision and perspective changes. Make sure your bio still feels like you, and check for any broken or outdated links or contact info.
Now go write your bio, and once you finish it drop a link in the comments so we can get to know you a little better!
p.s. If you’re really ready to break through some mind-set blocks, I have an additional challenge for you! On your ABOUT PAGE, have a professional headshot that people can copy for their promo materials. 72 DPI or higher for digital promotion. 300 DPI for printed promo material.
by Jessica Conoley