Well. It has been three days since I last posted a blog post, and the excuse I gave myself was that I was helping house sit and spent lots of time with my siblings.
But I digress. It has been three days since I last gave any sort of writing advice, and on this wonderful and beautiful Friday, here are some more writing tips for you!
So. You have a manuscript. You have done edits. You have formatted. Good to go, right?
Not quite. Did you know that are actually more components to publishing a book than just writing a book? Because I didn’t, and some of the things took me by surprise.
For example, having an author bio.
If you check out my about page, that’s my author bio. That is what my good friend, Kate Bergeron, wrote for me when Gatekeeper Press asked for an author bio.
But do people need to know about me?
Yes, they do! People want to know about the person who wrote the book that they are reading. It also builds credibility for your book. For example, I Have Something to Say has a lot of poetry to do with race and being a black woman, so my author bio mentions that I’m bi-racial (half black and half white). As readers, I hoped to reassure you that the words you read weren’t just from the imagination of being black. If you’re writing a book on how-to-plumbing…I hope you’re a plumber or have been taught by an experienced one for many years.
So author bio. Maybe you tried to write one, but it didn’t come out well. No worries – neither did mine. I had a hard time describing myself as a person. If that’s you as well, no fear! Ask a friend. Which brings me to another point about self-publishing: in many ways, it is by yourself. But in some ways, it’s not.
There are people all around you who have the gifts and talents that you don’t. God gives other people talents and often places the people with the talents that we lack around us so that can help us. My friend Kate is a marketing genius - it's her job. So, I was able to ask her for help.
My brother is super creative when it comes to graphic design, and, as a teenager, knows what a teen would like when looking through books. So, he designed the cover art for Undaunted for me.
The point is, ask for help. If you have people that you trust that have been given the talents that you don’t have, ask for help!
So if you’re having trouble coming up with an author bio, ask a friend who knows you well and will highlight your qualifications. I think most times, we need an outside perspective. It’s hard to write about yourself. At least it was for me. My author bio was really quite awful.
But maybe today, you feel like you don’t have the people you can trust around you. Maybe you feel like you are in this writing and publishing journey alone.
I’m here to tell you that you are not. When God has placed a dream inside of you, that dream of writing those books, writing that movie, starring in that movie, He wants it to happen more than you do. I’m beginning to really believe that God wants us to succeed more than we do. So today, relax. God is with you and can give you everything that you need for your dream to be a success. If that means an author's bio, ask Him for help. Beloved, every day, every moment, it feels like, I keep realizing that God is on my side all the time, and He loves me more than I even love myself. He wants your dream to happen, my friend. So today, let’s be bold and ask God for help.
Remember, you are deeply loved and held by The Heavenly Father Who will not let you go.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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