Crafting Your Author Bio

All about author bios and the dos and don’ts of writing your bio

I’ve been thinking a lot about author bios recently. I briefly mentioned what should go in an author bio in my blog post about querying fiction, but I wanted to take a moment to delve into author bios further. I’ve been talking to both new clients and querying authors about their bios the past few weeks, so it’s been a topic fresh on my mind. If you’d like to tighten up your bio, this post is for you. Whether you’re querying, self-publishing, or you’re working on polishing up your bio for your website, pull up a seat and let’s dive into crafting bios. 

Writing author bios can be challenging, especially for debut authors. The important thing to remember is that you’ll be building your biography and publications throughout your career, so it’s okay if your bio is short. It’s okay if you don’t have a lot of publications to mention. It’s okay if your job has nothing to do with the literary world. It’s okay if you don’t have an MFA, or if you haven’t attended any writing workshops. Guess what? All of these things are nice to have and they sure can fill up your bio, but they’re not necessary to become a published author. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Your Biography is a professional statement

Let’s start by looking at the purpose of an author biography and what typically fits into it. Your author biography is your professional statement as a writer. What does that mean? It means that it has a business purpose: to give people an understanding of who you are as a writer. It is specific to the publishing industry. 

It’s not the same biography you’d use in other industries or your corporate day job. Say you work as a recruiter at a tech firm. Readers and publishing professionals will not be interested to know that you’ve won your company’s top recruiter award in 2021. Unless you’re writing a non-fiction book about how to land the job of your dreams, we generally don’t need to know your awards at your corporate job.

What to include in your author bio

Author bios are actually quite formulaic. They all cover the same two things: who you are and your relevant credentials.  

1: The basics of who you are

When I say basics, I really mean basics. Where do you live? What do you do for work?** Do you have any interesting hobbies that are relevant to your writing or your book’s topic? 

** Disclaimer: you do not have to mention what you do for work or where you live if you don’t want to or if you have privacy concerns. Use your judgment! 

2: Your credentials

This covers any relevant education, whether you have participated in residencies or workshops, or have been awarded anything for your writing. It also covers whether you have published anything in the past. Whether it’s a previous book, a short story in a magazine, an article or an op-ed in a print or digital publication, or otherwise. Mentioning your articles and op-eds is especially important for nonfiction writers. If you’ve covered or written about the topic of your book in the past, that should definitely go in your bio! Similarly, if you host a podcast or have had any notable public appearances, mention them in your bio. For nonfiction authors especially, readers and publishing professionals expect that your bio will highlight your credentials, platform, public appearances, and article contributions. It’s what proves you’re the right person to write the book. While fiction authors don't need that in their biography and readers don’t generally look for a debut author’s “credentials” in their bios, for nonfiction authors, these things are crucial to include. Mandatory, even. 

For debut fiction authors, it’s perfectly acceptable to only have the basics of who you are in your bio. If you don’t have any relevant writing credentials to mention, that’s okay! Again, it will come in time as you build your writing career. 

If you’re querying, and want to add a little something to your bio, it’s perfectly acceptable (and encouraged!) to mention something about your inspiration for the book. For example, if you have been to a remote island that has inspired the setting of your book, you can mention that! 

This is perhaps a good spot for me to mention that your author bio can look a little different depending on what you’re using it for. A bio in your query can be a little more conversational than the general bio on your website or that you use for speaking events and workshops. Use your judgment when it comes to that!

That said, there are some general dos and don'ts to think about when you’re crafting your author biography. 

The dos and don'ts of author bios

• Dos

  • Do keep it brief and simple. I find that 3-4 sentences for debut authors is ideal.

  • Do mention your cool job/ hobby or the strange town you lived in if it is directly tied to your book’s topic. In line with the earlier example about the hypothetical remote island that inspired your book, if you work at a care home and you’ve written a thriller with a main character who is suffering from dementia, do mention that in your bio!

  • Do specify! Be as specific as possible with your nouns. If you’re mentioning that you live “in the city”, name the city. If you’re writing that you “won an award” for your writing, specify the award.

• Don'ts

  • Don’t tell us when you started writing. We don’t need to know that you started writing after you read Harry Potter at age 10.

  • Don’t mention your corporate job awards, unless they specifically tie into your book’s topic.

  • Don’t mention your writing influences. It’s not something we need to know in your biography. You can, however, talk about it in an interview or otherwise.

  • Don’t tell us your whole life story. Again, it’s important to keep it brief.

  • Don’t talk about how hard it’s been for you to get published or how many rejections it’s taken to get here.

  • Don’t mention your age (again, unless there is something pivotal to know about it).

  • Don’t mention things before high school. Your high school credentials don’t land the same way past high school, unfortunately. They don’t tell us much about your professional writing.

And finally, because I always like to look for inspiration and I firmly believe that we all learn best by looking at clear examples, here are some examples of bios from debut authors for you to take a look at. I’ve pulled these off of my bookshelf. This is also a reminder that your bookshelf has a wealth of author bios to look through for inspiration and guidelines! 

Bios from my bookshelf

FICTION

Oyinkan Braithwaite, author of My Sister, The Serial Killer: 

Oyinkan Braithwaite is a graduate of Creative Writing and Law from Kingston University. Following her degree, she worked as an assistant editor at Kachifo, a Nigerian publishing house, and as a production manager at Ajapaworld, a children's educational and entertainment company. She now works as a freelance writer and editor. In 2014, she was shortlisted as a top-ten spoken-word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam, and in 206, she was a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria. 

Ainslie Hogarth, author of Motherthing, her debut adult novel: 

Ainslie Hogarth is the author of The Lonely and The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated). She lives in Canada with her husband, kids, and little dog. 

Rachel Koller Croft author of Stone Cold Fox: 

Rachel Koller Croft is an author and screenwriter in Los Angeles, where she has scripted projects for Blumhouse, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Comedy Central, among others. She lives by the beach with her husband, Charles, and their rescue pitbull, Juniper. Stone Cold Fox is her first novel.

And this one from Nico Walker, who gets straight to the point and is the author of Cherry: 

Nico Walker is originally from Cleveland. Cherry is his debut novel. 

This is the expanded version of it on Penguin’s website: 

Nico Walker is originally from Cleveland. He served as a medic on more than 250 missions in Iraq. Walker served an eleven-year sentence in prison for bank robbery. Cherry is his debut novel.

NonFICTION

Desmond Cole, author of The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power: 

Desmond Cole is an award-winning journalist, radio host, and activist in Toronto. His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, The Walrus, NOW Magazine, Ethnic Aisle, Torontoist, BuzzFeed, and the Ottawa Citizen. The Skin We're In is Cole's first book.

Sheima Benembarek, author of Halal Sex: The Intimate Lives of Muslim Women in North America: 

Sheima Benembarek is a Moroccan Canadian journalist who’s written for The Walrus, Broadview, Maisonneuve, and the Literary Review of Canada. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King’s College, where she was a finalist for the Penguin Random House Canada Best Nonfiction Book Proposal Prize. In 2020, she was chosen as one of the five RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers of the year. She’s currently a senior editor at Toronto Life. 

Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score: 

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and director of the National Complex Trauma Treatment Network. When he is not teaching around the world, Dr. van der Kolk works and lives in Boston.

Another great resource for finding examples of author biographies is publisher websites. If you’re a genre writer, you can visit specific genre imprints and browse through the recently published books on the publisher’s website. They always include an author bio along with the book’s description. You’ll see a wider sample of examples from authors with different paths to publication, different writing credentials, and different walks of life. 

I personally find writing about myself the most challenging feat, even if it’s just for a short paragraph, so I hope this post has helped some of you out there. If there’s one thing you should take away from this post, it’s that you should approach writing your author bio from a professional or business perspective. Happy writing!