Comments on: Authors’ Bios as Marketing Tool

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:09:57 +0000

I agree with Donna that it depends on the writer. These two authors have had fascinating lives so why not heighlight their bios in their debuts? It’s also interesting that both are writing fiction, suggests to me that they’re less interested in themselves, rather more interested in story-telling. So, the publishers have grabbed their bios and used them as marketing tools but what else would you expect. These are debut authors so the publishers are taking a huge risk in financially backing these types of authors, particularly given the state of the global publishing/book industry. I don’t blame them for doing whatever they can to highlight the book and maximize sales. But Nora also makes a very interesting point that is seperate to the activities of the publishers: how should the authors themselves handle self-publicity? Familiarity can breed contempt and time will tell how these authors handle themselves. I’ve googled Matthew Dunn and can’t find anything on him save what has clearly been prepared by his publishers. That’s good in my mind, he’s clearly keeping quiet rather than banging on about himself in blogs and forums and web-sites etc.

It’s always the books that count though. And I expect Stevens and Dunn would both be devestated if anything detracted from their written works.

By: le0pard13

le0pard13 — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:13:13 +0000

One word: marketing. There, I said it. If it gets you to want to buy the product, it’s successful. Nothing more. Notice, I didn’t say it’s accurate or truthful (those are incidental to advertising). The former is important for research purposes, the latter for a court of law. Just not in marketing. I know, I’m being a real cynic here ;-).

p.s., each of the backgrounds could well be true, though.

By: Nora

Nora — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:01:28 +0000

This brave new world of self-marketing and internet marketing is still being sorted out. Yes, it’s wonderful we have greater access to our favorite authors and can interact, learn things about them, etc., but there is something to be said for an author (any public or semi-public persona, actually) to maintain some amount of distance between him or her self and the readership. It’s really only a matter of time before we discover that a fascinating author bio is the James Frey of author bios, too.

I’m aware of one person who is promoting a book she hasn’t written yet (which I always find hilarious — if these slick little self-promoters spent half the time WRITING the book as they do “building their internet presence”, they’d be published already, lol) and her backstory already has huge holes in it. Huge, verifiable holes. So now, if she ever does get that book published, fuggeddabouddit. It’s over before it began with that one.

So it’s a fine line — what to reveal, who will it impact besides yourself, is it a brutally honest bio or a glossed over, semi-fictionalized bio, etc. Can you cultivate too much familiarity? Familiarity often breeds contempt. And, even if you do have a fascinating, legitimate inside track to something, you can still tell a horribly boring story about it.

That said…I am so totally buying The Informationist because of the author background!

By: Jann

Jann — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:55:14 +0000

I always want to hear about the writer and what makes them tick, what their personal likes and dislikes are, etc., to see how much of themselves they bring to their books. I honestly don’t want to discuss the book itself, I want to get to know the person behind the words.

By: Donna

Donna — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:19:47 +0000

It depends on the writer. Spotlighting some of their personal experience would definitely help in getting peoples interest as well as increase sales. But I believe it should be done with their permission. And if they ok it then it’s not really exploitation. Yet even if individuals knew the writer permitted it some would still consider it exploitation. Sharing their tales? Only that which would help people understand how it formed the writer. Some tales may lead down a road the writer prefer not go again.