My editor has been asking me to rewrite my bio. She thinks a bio should satisfy a reader's curiosity about an author's journey and skillz.
My editor has been asking me to rewrite my bio. She thinks a bio should satisfy a reader's curiosity about an author's journey and skillz. She also sees it as an opportunity to let a prospective employer—in this case, one of the goliath publishing corporations—know that I'm not a complete dolt.
This is what I emailed her today. Any feedback would be welcome—just post your comments at the bottom. Thanks!
Author Bio:
Richard Due (pronounced “Dewey”) first imagined the Moon Realm while telling bedtime tales to his children. He makes his home in Southern Maryland, where he and his wife have owned and operated Second Looks Books since 1991. The Moon Coin is the first novel in his award-winning Moon Realm series.
Author Note:
I started writing stories in the 3rd grade and moved on to novels in my teens and twenties, only to give that all up in my mid-thirties.
In my working life, however, I've been into making squiggly marks (or dots, lots of dots) on paper since the 1980s. First, I worked as a laser scanner operator, making halftones. (Halftones are a reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots). Or, put more simply, I turned black and white photographs into a whole mess-o-dots, extra pretty-like, making them perfect for running on printing presses.
Later, I worked as a DS camera operator, making halftones and text negatives on orthographic film. Or, put more simply, I turned photographs into a whole mess-o-dots, on film, and did the same with text, only without all the dots, making them perfect for running on printing presses. I made several hundred BFOPs this way. (BFOPs, pronounced BEEfops, stands for Books For Other People. And they aren't always fun to make, but they're great for paying for things like books, car insurance, rent, more books, food, and drink.)
Eventually, though, computers took all those jobs away from me and gave them to something called a digital typesetter. So I taught myself how to be one of those, and made more books (some cool, most not so much) and computer software manuals (can you say: kill me now).
In 1991, I put the typesetting business on freelance, and entered into the exciting and glamorous world of book selling. My wife and I are still at it, selling books at our independent (mostly-) used bookstore in Prince Frederick, Maryland.
In 2010, however, something very strange happened. . . . On a complete lark, during the night of a full moon, I put all my skills together in a paper bag, and waved them over my head while clucking like a chicken, then opened the bag, and out spilled the Moon Realm Series in all its ebook and print goodness. I have been very happy ever since.
This is what I emailed her today. Any feedback would be welcome—just post your comments at the bottom. Thanks!
Author Bio:
Richard Due (pronounced “Dewey”) first imagined the Moon Realm while telling bedtime tales to his children. He makes his home in Southern Maryland, where he and his wife have owned and operated Second Looks Books since 1991. The Moon Coin is the first novel in his award-winning Moon Realm series.
Author Note:
I started writing stories in the 3rd grade and moved on to novels in my teens and twenties, only to give that all up in my mid-thirties.
In my working life, however, I've been into making squiggly marks (or dots, lots of dots) on paper since the 1980s. First, I worked as a laser scanner operator, making halftones. (Halftones are a reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots). Or, put more simply, I turned black and white photographs into a whole mess-o-dots, extra pretty-like, making them perfect for running on printing presses.
Later, I worked as a DS camera operator, making halftones and text negatives on orthographic film. Or, put more simply, I turned photographs into a whole mess-o-dots, on film, and did the same with text, only without all the dots, making them perfect for running on printing presses. I made several hundred BFOPs this way. (BFOPs, pronounced BEEfops, stands for Books For Other People. And they aren't always fun to make, but they're great for paying for things like books, car insurance, rent, more books, food, and drink.)
Eventually, though, computers took all those jobs away from me and gave them to something called a digital typesetter. So I taught myself how to be one of those, and made more books (some cool, most not so much) and computer software manuals (can you say: kill me now).
In 1991, I put the typesetting business on freelance, and entered into the exciting and glamorous world of book selling. My wife and I are still at it, selling books at our independent (mostly-) used bookstore in Prince Frederick, Maryland.
In 2010, however, something very strange happened. . . . On a complete lark, during the night of a full moon, I put all my skills together in a paper bag, and waved them over my head while clucking like a chicken, then opened the bag, and out spilled the Moon Realm Series in all its ebook and print goodness. I have been very happy ever since.
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message 1:
by
Somyajeet
(new)
Jan 26, 2013 10:03PM
Share about your life around your family - some sweet, some sour moments and more...Just like you will build up a main character's background, making him more familiar with the readers...Sharing your achievements is good but it just emotionless gibberish to most people.
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Somyajeet wrote: "Sharing your achievements is good but it just emotionless gibberish to most people."Thanks for the feedback!
I understand your desire to turn an author bio into a short story, where one can build character with sweet and sour moments drawn from life and family, but building characters well takes many more words than should be in an Author Bio (or Author Note). An Author Bio has to be painfully short, just a few sentences. An Author Note can be longer, but if it stretches more than half a page, then you've gone to far.
Also, I'm having difficulty making sense of your last sentence. First, you say "Sharing your achievements is good . . ." but then you go on to say "but it [is] just emotionless gibberish to most people."
How can it be good if it's "just emotionless gibberish to most people."? Wouldn't that be contradictory?
But it gets worse. The whole premise of the sentence makes no sense: something dry is emotionless gibberish to most people? Really? I don't see it. It seems to me that you're saying that passages bereft of emotions are gibberish to most people. Is that a fair interpretation? But if that was really the case, then something like the instructions to the rules of Monopoly would be gibberish (to most people). I don't think gibberish is the word you're looking for.
