Academic biography sample pdf

In a query letter, your author bio is the last full paragraph before you sign off.

Stick to your professional credentials as a writer, to facts about yourself that apply to the book, and to any prepublication acclaim this book has received.

• If you have no publication credits to your name, simply state, “This is my first book.”

• If you have done something truly impressive that relates to your book, mention it briefly here.

  For instance, if your novel is about mountain climbers and you personally have climbed the Himalayas with a sherpa, mention it. This is a marketable fact the agent can use when speaking to prospective editors, and it’s certainly going on the editor’s “tip sheet,” which will inform the book’s eventual sales and marketing campaigns.

• Prepublication acclaim means that you’ve workshopped this novel with a well-known novelist or at a well-known conference, not that your great-aunt Tilly thinks it’s sublime.

There is no need to mention where the agent can find you online.

You’ve reached out to them via email and provided your contact information in the query letter, so they know how to contact you.

The name of the game with a submission letter is to “keep it simple, sweetheart.” Magazine submissions editors read through hundreds if not thousands of pieces during a submission period. An overblown submission letter is more likely to be a hindrance than a help in getting your piece read, much less published.

As in a query letter, your author bio may need to be the last full paragraph before you sign off.

Examples of author biography Looking for feedback on your academic biography? Her main research interests include a decolonial approach to Fairy Studies, and she recently published the edited volume Rhyme Time: Creative Methods , Sesame Books. Purpose: Why you are writing this particular biography. She has climbed in the Himalayas, survived a shipwreck, and lived on a gold mine in the Yukon.

I say “may need to be” because if you don’t have any publication or professional credits to your name, then you don’t really need to include an author bio.

Again, there is no need to tell an acquiring editor how to find you. You knocked on their door.

You can learn more about the author bio section of a submission letter and get the answers to other submission letter questions here on the Gotham Writers website.

Hey, congrats!

You have a published story coming out. That’s certainly a feather in your cap, something you can include in your professional credentials section from now on.

For those who are new to the term, a byline is an author credit that can be as short as the writer’s name, but is sometimes used to refer to the biography you see either at the end of an article (both online and in print) or in a contributors’ section at the back of a magazine.

Byline bios are a bit different than the bios we use in covering letters for queries and submissions.

The biggest difference is that sometimes writers can skip the querying process altogether if they have written a truly compelling story, essay, or article.

This is because agents read broadly and widely. They don’t just read their slush and solicited manuscripts or books that are about to or have just come out.

Academica author biography page Caitlin Hamilton. She also includes a call-to-action for readers to sign up to Weekly Tea, one of her mailing lists. Already have a WordPress. For more information about Mia and her books, visit www.

They also read newspapers, magazines, and blogs, searching hungrily for their next big client.

With this in mind, it’s a good idea to hint at your long-form project in a byline. If a writer gets an agent because of a story they’ve published, it’s because the piece attracted the attention of such an agent. Then, likely, their byline mentioned a related long-form project they’re working on.

As in, “John Doe is currently working on a book about the history of the sofa.” If an agent representing quirky nonfiction books reads John’s article on the etymology of the word chair, then sees this in the byline, boo howdy are they going to want to talk to John!

And this is why it’s helpful to add that third sentence about where you can be found online, to make it easy for an agent who is doing the unthinkable and reaching out to you first to find you.

Academica author biography page template Even early in your research career, it's worth thinking about crafting your bio. Courtney pens a weekly newsletter about tea, books, and basically anything and everything else. You can visit her at www. While there is no one-size-fits-all formula, here are some examples of author bios we love so you can get some inspiration when crafting your own bio.

(Just make sure your contact form is working or that, in case of technical difficulty, your email is listed right there on your site. More on that later. For now, best of luck with those author bios!)