Write More Than One Bio

Issue #821 May 27, 2014
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

Write More Than One Bio
The Typo Police
Wanted: Guest Bloggers
Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

I’m nursing only one wound from the weekend in the garden. I bought an 18-inch light pink climbing rose bush at the plant sale on Saturday and promptly stabbed my finger. I eased the plant out of the pot and into the ground with no more injuries, thanks to a pair of industrial-strength work gloves that look like something the astronauts wore when they landed on the moon.

1. Write More Than One Bio

When journalists, bloggers and others search your website for your bio, will they have to perform major surgery to whittle it down to, say, only 50 words?

If so, you’re inviting inaccuracies and making their job difficult.

Offer several versions of your bio in different sizes:

–140 characters, the size of a Twitter status update.

–A two-line bio, perfect for a very short author resource box at the end of an article you’ve written.

–50 words, for publications that give you more space.

–100 words, which lets you insert some personal details.

–400 to 600 words, a chance to tell a story with your bio.

That’s one of the tips from the “Quick & Easy Media Kit Templates for Indie Authors,” the wildly successful product I launched over the weekend with book publishing expert Joel Friedlander and Tracy Atkins.

We sold more than 600 units to authors, and 12 commercial licenses to publicists.

If you missed it, you can still find it here.

2. The Typo Police

Do you fret as much as you used to over typos?

I don’t.

That’s because I’m producing at least five times more content than I did a decade ago, from my blog to the many status updates on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

I’ll bet you are, too.

Yet typos rankle some people so much that they appoint themselves to The Typo Police force. In groups on LinkedIn and elsewhere, they publicly embarrass fellow group members by pointing out typos in posts.

Please don’t do that. If you see a typo, contact the writer privately.

Proofread your own work. And pay a proofreader to review the most important copy you write, like articles you’re submitting to other publications. But don’t obsess over mistakes you find in other people’s work or get defensive when people find mistakes in copy you write.

As for me, if you find a typo in anything I write, please let me know. I archive this newsletter online and I’ll promptly fix it. Your time would be better spent, however, producing your own content.

3. Wanted: Guest Bloggers

Interested in writing a guest post for my blog, or becoming a regular contributor?

Start by reading my “how to pitch me” tips.

If you’ve written for my blog before, read Tip #11.

4. Hound Video of the Week

Thanks to Publicity Hound Nancy Juetten of Bellevue, Wash., for sharing this fun video of happy dogs (and a cat or two) at the beach in Australia, to the tune of the Pharrell Williams’ hit single “Happy.”