New Author Bio and Author Note
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.
"Tales, unlike stories, never lie." 
I think the book group helped shape both you and your tales, and should be included in your bio.
You’re hired!
Sounds good. Nice balance to it. It seems like I am constantly editing a Bio for an editor, or for a school visit, or updating it on Linked In. And I never like it.
Thanks, Mark!
I’ve been avoiding writing this. As the owner of a bookstore, I’ve had the opportunity to read a slew of good and bad author bios (and see a lot of good and bad author photos). I’ll tell you, it’s a very humbling experience to read author bios for twenty-one years, then try and make one up from scratch.
A perfect reply! Thanks for taking the trolbue.
I’m about as far away from being an expert as it is possible to be, but, like most everybody else, I do have opinions. So, without further ado, in my humble opinion it seems to me the Author’s Bio might best be fine-tuned for each prospective publishing house, depending on the type of books they tend to prefer publishing. In other words, humor would work for a publisher that publishes a lot of humor, whereas stodgy seriousness might work better for a publisher that prefers to publish stodgy, serious books. I think I understand this bio is intended to be a general release type of thing, in which case it is very good. But I think if you were sending manuscripts to specific publishers WITH A BIO, you might be better served by rewriting it every time for every publisher. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? But for general information to the world in general, this one is very good.
JaxGrampy, aka Grampy, Grampy Lee, and other variations on the theme.
Thank you very much for the feedback! But I’m long past the sending out manuscripts stage. 🙂 I’m on my third book in the series, and my first one picked up a children’s book award last fall. As for stodgy, serious publishers, I kinda like the idea that they would want to steer clear of me. I’m not looking for a bad fit.