Hi Guys, Being a relative newcomer to the kindle I only recently found the author's central pages and created an author's bio. And of course immediately I wrote the bio I scrapped it and wrote another one, because the first seemed lame. This one below is my third,and I think I'm happy with it, but I'd welcome some indipendant opinions. ********* Greg Curtis was born in New Zealand, land of the long white cloud and small flightless birds, in the city of Wellington, renown for its high winds and the almost magical ability of rain and sleet to be lifted off the street and blasted into one's face. After eighteen years of suffering the cold and wet, he was finally blown away in a particularly bad storm to settle far away as a student, for more years then most would ever admit to, and then more latterly, an overqualified and underpaid worker in the health sector, (aren't we all). He has lived in the city of Rotorua, one of the very few places in the world where people have actually chosen to reside beside active geysers and breath air that reeks of sulphur, for the past fifteen years, working by day for his daily bread, and toiling away by night on his books. When not engaged in his great passions of reading and writing science fiction and fantasy, drinking strong black coffee (some call it tar), and consuming copious amounts of chocolate (dark naturally), he lives a quiet life of contemplation as the high priest to his two cats, worshipping them with regular gifts of food, occasional grooming and by providing them with a warm dry place to sleep. They in turn look down upon him with typical feline disdain, but occasionally deign to bring him gifts of headless vermin, - as a warning. In a desperate bid to understand the meaning of his life, he has recently started studying philosophy, particularly metaphysics, and finally concluded that God is a cat! Cheers and be good or don't get caught. Greg. *********** I was trying to go for something that sounded interesting and enjoyable but was also professional, and which gave away a little about me but not too much. Does it hit the mark? Cheers.
It seems fine overall content-wise, but it could use some tightening and trimming down. First of all, try and change passive voice to active -- for example, "was born in" could easily change to "grew up in." The first sentence is a little wordy, and you might want to add in some shorter sentences to make the flow more natural and easier to read. Also, maybe in the UK it's different, but in the U.S., author bios (I'm assuming this is the bio in the jacket flap at the end of the book) are a little shorter...one paragraph, five sentences long maybe. Congratulations on getting your book published!
sorry to say, those first two overblown, overwritten, overcrammed sentences would put me off wanting to read anything else that writer had written... forcing myself to read the rest only strengthened that assessment/decision... imo, you need to stop trying to be cute and funny [which isn't working, i'm afraid] and stick to the facts... show that you can write interestingly and in a reader-friendly way, with good technical skills, some of which are not evident here...
Yeah, tough but accurate advice here. Shorten it, tighten it up, establish your relevance and position as a writer (author's bios should be mostly about authoring stuff, unless you're famous and everyone already knows you), and then maybe slip in a 'cute and funny' line or two only. I mean, I have a friend who's literally mentioned inside jokes about jean cutoffs in author bios, so there's some wiggle room for having fun. It should be short and sweet, though, a one-two combo, so readers can get back to the fiction!
Raised by wolves in the French Quarter's outback, At 19 Russell was sentenced to 353 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, while incarcerated the left hander feel in love with Shakespeare, Steinbeck and John Irving often emulating their writing on the wall of his cell using his own blood. Upon the overturn of his conviction he studied under the master Saul Bladder before releasing his debut 'Poppin' Mary.'
