by Amanda Avutu of Lucky Guppy Marketing
Sadly, the days when it was simply enough to make something lovely have passed. People want to know you. Or at least feel like they do. This is especially true in the handmade market, where customers find the idea of investing in a work of art–or a specific artist–alluring.
Blame it on reality TV or Googling or Facebook or global warming (which might be directly related to all of the above). Whatever the case, you need to infuse your bio with a healthy dose of personality so that you come across as a real, three-dimensional person–all fallible and funny and human. Saying you’ve always loved [fill in the blank] since you were a kid, and that after becoming a mom, you saw a need you could address with [fill in the product] is not going to bring in the bacon (even if it is just a side order you’re after).
Here’s an easy way to ferret out some fun personal details that will save your bio from being a total bore. Make a list of five things your reader can’t tell just by looking at you (or your résumé). Here’s one of my lists, which you’ll see explores different facets of my personality, all centered around the love of words, language and storytelling:
- I was a speling be champiun in grade skhool but now rely on spell check like most mere mortals.
- In one amazing week, I seated novelist Tobias Wolff for brunch and chased after poet Stanley Kunitz with his cane, which he had left in Bryant Park. (substitute in Clooney and Pitt if it helps you better understand my nerdish delight).
- I may not be fluent in Spanish anymore, but atway eastlay Iway ancay illstay eakspay igPay atinLay?
- I used to tell people that my parents were Russian spies because we moved around so much. It helped having a sister named Natasha.
- My son and I finished our first books the same year. We have yet to find a publisher for either “Bixby the Blue Lobster” or “Bad Luck Boris.”
As you look at your own lists, you’ll find plenty of fodder for a fun, fresh bio. By no means should you use it all. You can use one factoid from your list to bookend your bio or judiciously sprinkle several throughout. Whatever you do, choose wisely, grasshopper. The fact that you’ve taken a second mortgage on your home is not necessarily the nugget I’d choose to promote your children’s boutique.
Special for OMHG readers: 15% off a Bore-Free Bio Makeover by Lucky Guppy Marketing. Step 1: Send in your existing bio/about us/company history content. Step 2: Complete my “brief creative brief.” Step 3: Bask in the shiny glow of your new, bore-free bio.
