From all of us at Outskirts Press, have a safe and happy New Year!

It’s easy to overlook the author’s bio. Often, they’re tucked into the back of a book or at the bottom of an article. Yet, a bio is necessary if you’re publishing a book and want to make writing a career.

If you have no bio, readers may be puzzled by its absence. If your bio is bad, then your readers may put down your book. If you put in the work to craft a solid author bio that stands out, it will pique the interest of potential readers, and it may even help you sell more copies.

Thankfully, an author bio is way easier than writing a book. However, even with that in mind, there are some guidelines to follow if you want your bio to stand out in a good way rather than being forgettable or bewildering. In this post, I go into the essentials of a good author’s bio that hooks readers and sells books.

The most important rule is to keep your bio brief. You will use your bio in several places (more on that later) and want your readers to read the entire paragraph without trailing off. Bio may be short for “biography,” but you should save the long-form essay for other places. The word count varies, but 100–150 words are a good ballpark for most places.

Another important convention is to write your bio in the 3rd person point-of-view, not in the 1st person “I” voice. While you want your writer’s voice to shine through, the 3rd person grants your bio an air of professionalism.

Bio openings vary, but a safe go-to is to put in the first sentence a) your name, b) your profession, and c) the name of the book you’re writing the bio for.

Just for fun, imagine if I’m writing a book based on this blog. By using the above template, my opener may be, “Elizabeth Javor is the sales and marketing director of Outskirts Press and the author of the book Elizabeth Speaks.” (That’s a working title.)

Within your bio, you should hint at the subject matter or themes in your writing. Ideally, you should be hinting at the unifying principle of your work. If you’re a novelist, mention the subgenre and the important themes you aim for in your stories. If you’re a nonfiction writer, focus on your niche.

Especially in nonfiction, you want your bio to show off your expertise. When your readers want to be informed or persuaded or at least believe in what you’re writing, showing them your credentials and accomplishments does the job. If you’re publishing an academic book, your educational history is a must-have. Even outside of academia, it’s nifty to show off any higher degree you have, such as an MFA. If you’re writing about how to run a business, your audience will want to know your companies and if they’re successful.

Even in fiction, mentioning your experience in your bio is useful. For example, if you’re writing a novel about running, readers will buy into your story more if you’re a runner yourself.

A common way to add a personal touch to the bio is to share your geography and your family. For this, avoid charting out your entire life story. Instead, stick to where you’re currently living unless a previous residence pertains to your book’s subject. With your family, only mention what you’re comfortable with. For example, some authors are happy to say they have a husband, a bunch of kids, and a cat. Other authors will omit that personal information altogether.

If you want to stand out, you can opt for something unusual about your life. For example, some readers may be interested if you’re a fire dancer or an exotic animal trainer, even if these identities don’t relate to your book. In these cases, do keep it to one sentence.

When ending your bio, a reliable closer states what else you’ve written. If you’ve already written books and you’re reading this article as a refresher, this is the opportunity to plug your previous titles. If this is your first book, you can state that you’re a debut author. Even if it’s your debut, you should bring up relevant publications you’ve contributed pieces to, such as journals and blogs.

Once you have your author bio, the fun starts! Your bio doesn’t just exist in the back of your book. You can take the same blurb and reuse it, with some tweaks, in your marketing.

Put your bio on the product page for your books and your author page on a storefront like Amazon. Then, you can put it on your website by extending it into a full “about” page. Next, trim it up for your social platforms, such as Instagram, and send it to your hosts for guest blog posts, podcast appearances, and book signings. You can even use it as an outline for a longer blog post or a Twitter thread pitching your book.

With all this advice in mind, start drafting your bio. If you’re stuck on how to write it, open some books in the genre you’re writing in and study how their authors structure their spiels. You can even look at the contributor bios on this very blog.

The author bio is rarely the one factor that sells your book. Nevertheless, it’s integral to pitching your book and getting your next reader.

Over to YOU: If you have an author’s bio, put it in the comments! If you don’t have one, create a draft and share it. Add any additional tips and advice for writing great author bios.

If you have researched options for publishing licenses, you might’ve run into Creative Commons and wondered if it was right for you.

A Creative Commons (CC) license is a free licensing scheme from a nonprofit organization of the same name. It gives creators an easy, configurable option for reserving and waiving their works’ rights.

Depending on your CC license, you can make it easier for other creators to build off your work. For instance, you can use a CC license to enable other creators to publish adaptations and modifications of your writing without negotiating with you over a license.

Furthermore, CC gives you options to control how others use your work. Are you not comfortable with others selling derivations of your work? Then go for a Noncommercial license. Do you want others to remain within the Creative Commons ecosystem? Opt for the ShareAlike option.

In all cases, you’ll retain the right to attribution, which means any derivative works will have to state that you and your work are the original source. But, more importantly, you’ll retain your work’s copyright and all the benefits that come with it.

So, if you’re self-publishing, should you put your next book under a Creative Commons license? It depends. For some writers, Creative Commons empower their goals. For others, it could impede the ability to profit from your products.

Keeping in mind that I’m not your lawyer, here are some factors I recommend considering when contemplating a Creative Commons license.

When should you use Creative Commons?

First off, Creative Commons has a license to place your work into the public domain. If you want to waive copyright entirely, put your words under the CO license. However, this isn’t an ideal path for any writer looking to make money off books.

One feature of a CC license is that it’s easy to apply for. To apply for a license, you just need to go to the Creative Commons website, use their chooser to pick which specific license you desire, then copy and paste the license’s wording onto your book’s copyright page.

Voilà, you’re done. There is no need to pay for a CC license or register it in a database. (Although I still recommend registering for copyright if you want to enforce it.) Anyone who wants to share or build upon your work must just read the terms of your CC license and follow them without you being required to talk with licensees.

A CC license is an excellent option if you want to freely encourage collaboration and derivation of your work, especially if you’re writing nonfiction.

For example, a teacher or professor may want to publish a paper or pamphlet and want other educators to incorporate those words into their classrooms or course materials. In these cases, the creator hopes to spread knowledge while retaining attribution for one’s work. If that’s your aim, CC is a good option.

Another approach is to place one work in the Creative Commons to promote another work that has all rights reserved. That way, you can have a CC product—like a freebie or a white paper—that readers can freely share while you can maintain commercial viability for your main book.

Even some fiction writers may see the use of the Creative Commons. For example, many novels have a CC license. Creative Commons is also common in other creative mediums like video games and tabletop role-playing games, where creators want others to release freely remixes of their games.

When isn’t Creative Commons the right choice?

Frankly, unless you have a good reason to adopt a CC license, I recommend you go with the default option of “all rights reserved,” a familiar phrase on most published books’ copyright pages.

A critical feature of a CC license is that it is irrevocable. This means that it applies forever once you put your work under a CC license. Therefore, if you want to change how your work’s material is used, then CC isn’t for you.

Creative Commons may also not make sense with your particular medium. For example, if you’re a novelist, you may not see a reason to license out derivations freely of your books.

You may also not be comfortable with adaptations of your work, especially if the adapters charge money. For instance, you may not want other writers using your characters, setting, or even words—even if they’re crediting you as the original creator.

A CC license also makes it so licensees are not obligated to contact you before sharing or remixing. If that arrangement makes you uncomfortable, that’s another point against CC.

And ultimately, if you don’t understand what a CC license does, it’s better to go with all rights reserved. Since CC is irrevocable, you should fully understand which rights you’re giving away before opting to do so.

So that’s the rundown of what constitutes Creative Commons and the factors to consider. Even if you have zero interest in applying for a CC license, learning the ins and outs will help you build your knowledge of licensing and how to protect better your book’s copyright.

Over to YOU: What experience do you have with Creative Commons licensing? What other questions do you have about copyright and licensing?