Your Boring Bio

While listening to a media panel at Publishers Marketing Association University in Washington, D.C., I cringed when I heard national correspondent Dan Raviv of CBS Radio News talk about the one thing he pays attention to when someone pitches him.

He doesn’t care about their book. He sometimes doesn’t even care about the pitch. The one thing that’s likely to catch his attention is their bio.

Why did I cringe? Because most bios I read are more potent than sleeping pills. They list the names of every school someone ever attended, all the degrees they
earned, and all of their professional designations. Authors and speakers, it seems, write the worst bios.

Right now, I want you to pull out your own bio and read it. Then ask yourself. “If I were a journalist, would I interview me?”

Chances are, you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t either. And most other journalists wouldn’t.

The best bio reflects the personality of the writer. Great bios include fun little tidbits about a person’s hobbies, or their pets, or the one thing they want to accomplish before they die, or the best piece of advice they got from mom.

One of my favorite bios is actually an introduction for a speaker who is a veterinarian, and it morphs into a funny poem that has the audience howling with laughter before the speaker takes the microphone.

– Joan