What do good author bios have in common? They are all different.

A fellow author was looking for inspiration for her author bio this week. It reminded me how hard it is to write a bio. The monumental task of writing books seems to pale in comparison to this dreaded one-pager!

We can create multiple characters and entire worlds. Yet our minds go blank when challenged to say something about ourselves. Probably because these few paragraphs will represent us to our readers, our critics, and anyone who ever types our names into Google. For eternity.

What Not to Write

There are plenty of articles and webinars online, offering guidance for writing an author bio. Some include a template for the author to slot their accomplishments into. These don’t seem to help much if the author doesn’t have: a writing qualification, a string of competition…