Thinking Out Loud

[ella]

I can write a NF author bio no problem. I can cobble together a couple of sentences about myself for a cover or query letter. I'm pretty sure I'd have no problem writing a jacket blurb, or waxing on about myself in a press release. But I have no clue what to write for a fiction bio for a proposal. So... I'm going to work through it... in public... hopefully without getting egg on my face... hopefully with a little help from my friends... some of who are probably stuck as well... 9Deep breath) Without further ado:


-- My NF creds seem irrelevant (at best I can say I've been published in teen mags when I'm trying to pitch an idea for 4 year olds; everything else is just straight-up nerdy).

-- My stories are not weighty enough to claim any ties to them. ("While I lack royal blood, I'll always be a princess to my dad." "I can fart with the best of them." "My daughter inspired this series." Bleh!)

-- Does it matter that 23,414 people read my online articles in the past seven days alone if the overwhelming majority of those articles have nothing to do with kid lit?

-- Does it matter than I'm a military wife? That I've lived in a lot of places? How about that I worked at a library, with kids? Does it help that I'm a reviewer for Amazon (not a top-thousand reviewer, but a "Vine Voice")?

-- I don't tweet, I don't blog, and I don't want to create a website until I actually have a book deal. I *am* on Facebook, but I have friends and family, not legions of followers.

In other words, I feel like at best I can write some slightly-out-of-the-norm trivia about myself. In all this muck, what would an editor care about? (A generic response would be fine, because I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way, though their autobiographical bullets will be different.)

[ladyjai]

Ella! I know exactly how you feel. Everything about me is scattered and irrelevant to the kidlit field, especially since I have yet to be published. My facebook site is for personal use. My twitter I use mainly for personal use...with added learning capabilities. But I never offer them up for any editor or agent. I don't think that would be very professional. I'm worldly just like you....born in the military, married the military and work for the military...an only child secluded and shuffled around every 4 years for most of her life. You should read my twitter/FB bio...THAT might be something to post for a laugh!


So here ya go:

I'm a little odd, a little different, a little crazy, a little weird, a little goofy, a little girly, a lot tomboyish, a lot geeky, maybe even a bit nerdy. I don't fit in with any crowd. I'm too shy to meet new friends. I do know it's a whole lot easier with the interwebs to open up and meet like minded people. I love to read. I love to write. And I hope one day to become a published author. But currently, I am stuck in the IT field. I am a MomMom to my 8 year old son. I am best friend, soul mate, wife, and caregiver to my disabled Vet hubby. I am staff to my cats. And I still try to make time to work on my writing.


See, nothing pertinent for kitdlit

[Buried Editor]

Ella,

Although most of your magazine articles are nonfiction for teens, it would still be relevant to say that you "have been published in numerous teen magazines" or something like that. Listing the individual articles would be unnecessary, but you should still mention it. It makes you a published rather than unpublished author and it shows that you know how to meet deadlines, that kind of thing.

The rest may or may not be relevant depending on your book. I would not include personal twitter/facebook pages, but sometimes people have an existing platform that they write about that could be relevant. Then they would want to include those.

Bios are hard to write, but since ultimately they are literally the least important part of the proposal, I would not worry about it to much. If someone has read far enough into your proposal to get to the bio, there not going to stop reading just because you haven't done a lot of picture book-related writing yet.

And thank you for being courageous enough to experiment in public. I hope our feedback/commiseration has helped!

[ella]

Thank you both. And thank you especially for the "literally the least important part of the proposal, I would not worry about it to much " bit. A little perspective always goes a long way towards restoring sanity.