Here we go again, hopefully not forgetting about it for six months in the middle of the year this time.
January’s blog prompt over at WriYe is: Write your future author bio / FAQ page.
Which is a little funny because I’ve had both for years.
I think the FAQ was one of the first things I ever put up on my wordpress blog. I remember I wrote it in a notebook first before putting it up online, which in retrospect, is a little silly. It’s here, by the way (in case you’re coming from kitcampbellbooks.com and not wordpress itself).
It’s definitely on the sillier side, but hey, so am I.
I feel like, in terms of being an author, the purpose of a FAQ is less informative than it might be for other professions. Your job is to make things up, and your FAQ is kind of an opportunity to do just that. Maybe if one was especially famous or important, it might make sense to do a serious one, but where is the fun in that?
I have three main bios that I use for varying things.
Some places want a short bio. Mine is: Kit Campbell likes landsquid and plesiosaurs. She can be found online at http://kitcampbellbooks.com.
Short. Sweet. Weird.
My “professional” bio, the one that’s on my Amazon author page and my website, is this one:
Kit Campbell has never met a mythology she hasn’t liked. This sometimes leads to issues, such as the occasional Norse God of Thunder showing up in the Garden of Eden. She adores weaving in the possibilities forgotten magic can bring to a story, and enjoys making up new creatures, such as large, venomous monsters that hunt in packs.
Kit’s stories have been published in half-a-dozen anthologies, and her YA novella, Hidden Worlds, was released by Turtleduck Press in 2010.
Her debut novel, Shards, was released December 2013.
Kit lives in Colorado in a house of ever-increasing chaos.
This is not my favorite, and it does probably need to be rewritten. Out of date on things like short stories and whatnot. Something to add on to the to do list, I guess.
My favorite bio, and the one I use when I sell a story or go to a con, is this one:
It is a little known fact that Kit was raised in the wild by a marauding gang of octopuses. It wasn’t until she was 25 that she was discovered by a traveling National Geographic scientist and brought back to civilization. This is sometimes apparent in the way that she attempts to escape through tubes when startled.
Her transition to normalcy has been slow, but scientists predict that she will have mastered basics such as fork use sometime in the next year. More complex skills, such as proper grocery store etiquette, may be forever outside her reach.
And then I stick my website on the end. Cuz let’s be honest, I feel the same way about bios as I do about FAQs. Is there any reason to be serious? Maybe eventually. Maybe one day I will win a Hugo award, and then I can add a line about that somewhere.
But for now? Nah.
Anyway, that’s me, at least for now. Thoughts on author bios, squiders? Do you like someone to list their accomplishments, or do you prefer they have a bit of fun?
