Writing an Author Bio for Your Freelance Writing Work


I have been working on posting on author bios for a while now, but have been behind in the “to do” list. This is a posting for those writers in the audience that are interested in writing an author bio.

Having an author bio is a terrific way to put a personal note on your work as a writer. Some clients may request this information for work you provide for them. Author bios are a way to connect with your readers or audiences and allow readers to see the person behind the site, blog or article.

There are a number of different approaches a writer can take to making an author bio. I have seen several that are a book and a half to read. Some are very professional and read like a resume while others are very personal and humorous. I saw one author bio that described how she wrote from her upstairs attic room with the company of her dog and cat. She went on to depict her children and husband in great detail, their ages and how many boys and girls she had without ever mentioning any type of education or experience.

Your author bio is typically a reflection of you. make it anything you want. However, remember that when you are attempting to get clients or build a brand for yourself, this information will be Googled and identified with you.  If you feel comfortable with creating an author bio built on this type of foundation, okay. If not, you want to build a different type of author bio.

Many author bios that are attractive to readers are short, possibly a mini paragraph. You can write the bio under your pen name or your real name. Include a little information about your education and what you write about. If you are mostly a technical writer, mention that information. If you can web design, include that attribute. If you want to add a pic of yourself or an avatar, bring in it in.  Many of the new author bios created that I have seen are a video of a couple of minutes.

WordPress users have the capability to add an author bio to your posts. I have included the short video on incorporating that at the end of this post as an example of an author bio. If you have written or created an author bio for your content, please share you information or experience with your bio with us.


Comments

  1. Some of the writers at Hospitality Writers (my website) could learn a lot from you.... I ask them to limit it to 500 words - is that too short?

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks for your comment
    500 words is definitely not too short. its really a preference. you dont want to too long that the readers wont stay interested or take the time to read it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Absolutely, also, I have this section within my sidebar that features a writer - so it needs to be short and catchy.

    I made a mistake with writing 500 words - it is actually 500 characters - is that still good?

    Glad to hear your opinion!

    ReplyDelete
  4. lynn
    if it works for you and your content-great.
    i dont really believe there is a right or wrong way to provide the information.
    some of the authors want to keep them short.

    ReplyDelete

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