​Writing a Bio for Your Author Website

You’ve finished your book, it’s being published, and now you want to set up an author website so you can connect with your readers on a more personal level. That means you’ll need to turn to your writing skills to write your bio. There are some things to consider if you want to be taken seriously as an author.

1.    Be professional, but personal. Readers who go to your website want to know you as a person. Let your writing style shine through when you do your author bio. If your writing style includes humor, feel free to be humorous here as well. 

2.    Most website bios are written in the third person even though you are the one writing the bio.

3.    Be sure and mention something interesting about your writing. What inspired you to write, why you wrote a particular story or tell something interesting about your book. If you have something unique about your writing habits, like you write standing up, or you can’t write until all the pencils in the house have been sharpened, most people would find that interesting. Quirky, but interesting.
4.    If you belong to any writer trade associations or any organization that relates to your writing briefly mention this. Mentioning it gives you some credibility as a writer.

5.    If you have won book or writing awards briefly mention them to further your credibility as a writer. Notice I said briefly. Expounding on awards and prizes ad nauseam only gives you credibility as a bore. 

6.    Only mention your education or job history if it is relevant to your writing or your books. You don’t want to give irrelevant detail to your readers. They go to your website to learn about you as a writer, and if the information doesn’t relate to that, they will probably be bored and move on.

7.        Some writers will mention their family, but this isn't a must and if you want to keep your private life private I recommend only mentioning you have a spouse and family or just not mentioning them at all. 

Once you have the bio drafted, read through it and have a trusted friend do a read through to make sure what you have is relevant and doesn’t put the reader to sleep. The great thing about your author website is that you get to change it whenever you want so feel free to go back and freshen it up and mix things up every now and again.