How to Write a Query Letter Bio Paragraph
by Mary Kole | Former literary agent, now a freelance editor, writing teacher, and IP/story developer for major publishers and creators.
Far and away, the most common question I get from writers is how to write a query. While there are many resources about pitching the story, sometimes advice about how to write a query skips over common-sense direction for what to include in the query letter author biography paragraph. This is a small but important component of how to write a query.
How to Write a Query Bio: Remember That It’s a Business Letter
When crafting your query letter bio, keep things brief and professional. For the bio paragraph, you don't need to mention which college you attended, how many children you have, names of your pets, or what you do as a job unless it is related to the topic of your book. (Your educational credits are important if you have training specific to creative writing, of course, but other parts of your CV are less relevant.)
When the time comes for an agent to call and offer representation, that's when they generally take the time to chat and learn about the writer as a person. But this article isn’t about questions to ask literary agents or what a literary agent might ask you! This is about how to write a query letter. And in the query, say as little about yourself as possible, unless it pertains to the book you’ve written. It is not that we are trying to sound unkind—we’re sure that you are quite interesting as a human being! However, a query is still a business letter and should sound professional. (Some writers veer into oversharing and TMI, and it’s not a good look if you’re wondering how to write a query.)
How to Write a Query Bio: Relevant Experience
With children's books, some budding authors think it's necessary to demonstrate their rationale for wanting to write for kids. Otherwise, why would an adult spend their time imagining kids’ stories? Therefore, in their author biography, they may discuss their own kids or the ones they know, their college classes about early childhood education, their job as a party clown, etc.
But justifying your interest in your subject matter isn’t a crucial part of how to write a query. The only real way to prove you can write for kids, for example, is to demonstrate it with your work. Having experience or knowledge of children, psychology, or education is good, but it can lead to stories that are either too personal or too intellectual, which limits their potential marketability.
No matter if you're an archaeologist by day or a superhero by night, it's only essential to point out how your career is relevant to the story if your characters go on a dig or fight crime. Otherwise, if you're just a middle manager at a corkscrew manufacturing company, there's not much need to put that info in your author bio. Unless, of course, you have a unique professional or personal fact that adds interest and is in sync with the tone of the query letter. How to write a query bio? Don't spend too much time on this—what matters more is that your fiction makes agents and publishers care.
How to Write a Query Letter Bio: Relax
So when you're wondering how to write a query letter bio, it's best to focus on professional writing credits and information related to the project at hand. If you've published or won any awards, don't forget to mention them: something like:
"My book Biographical Information in a Query (Unlikely Press, 2023) sold well, and I was recently honored with the Stupid Article Example Award from the Muse Society."
If you don’t have any of these writing credits from book sales to your name, don't worry—everyone starts somewhere. It's simply nice to know that you've already gotten yourself out there and taken some action by writing a book and researching literary agents to submit it to.
And that’s all there is to how to write a query letter bio. Now you can go back to agonizing about a good logline!
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