An author bio is the short account of the writer that appears at the back of the book, usually under the heading "About the Author". Convention is a single paragraph in the third person, covering what else you have written and anything genuinely relevant about you.
Convention is the right word. No style authority publishes a rule for it. That is the most useful thing to know before you take anyone's advice on the subject, including mine.
The Rules Nobody Actually Wrote
Search for guidance and you will be told the bio should be 100 to 150 words, in the third person, ending with where you live and what pets you have. Those figures are repeated everywhere with total confidence.
I went looking for the source. The Chicago Manual of Style, New Hart's Rules, the university press manuscript guides that publish their house requirements openly, and the professional editorial bodies were all checked. None of them specifies a length, a grammatical person, or a content list for an author bio.
Chicago does have a section for it, numbered 1.75 and titled "Biographical note", placed in the back matter. Its text sits behind the manual's paywall, so it may say more than I can see. What is clear is that the freely available guidance from the presses and the bodies is silent.
The closest thing to an authority on the third person question is a Chicago Manual of Style blog post by Carol Saller, which describes the convention while openly questioning it: "It's traditional in a bio for a third-person narrator to describe your work and qualifications." That is a description of practice, not a rule, and the post exists precisely to ask whether the practice still makes sense.
There is a reason for the silence, and it shows up in how presses actually collect the thing. Yale University Press routes the bio through an Author Information Form, described as "the place to share your biography, personal networks and connections". Columbia University Press uses an Author Questionnaire. The bio is gathered as marketing material, not as an editorial element with a standard attached. Style manuals govern the parts of a book that have to be consistent. Nobody has ever needed the author bio to be consistent.
For contrast, here is what a real published rule looks like when one exists. The University of Chicago Press caps book abstracts at 250 words and chapter abstracts at 200, and asks authors to "adopt an impersonal voice rather than using personal pronouns". That is a specification. Note that it is about abstracts, not bios, and should not be transplanted.
So What Should You Actually Do
Everything below is convention and judgement, presented as such.
Third person, unless you have a reason. "Jane Doe is the author of..." rather than "I am the author of...". It reads as the publisher's description rather than self promotion, which is the effect most authors want. First person bios work well for memoir, humour, and anywhere the voice of the book is the selling point.
One paragraph, roughly 50 to 150 words. Long enough to establish credibility, short enough that a browsing reader finishes it. This is a norm, not a rule.
Lead with what is relevant to this book. Previous books first if you have them, then relevant expertise. A debut novelist with no publication history leads with whatever makes the book credible: the doctorate for the medical thriller, the twelve years at sea for the maritime novel.
Include where readers can find you, if you want them to. A website is more durable than a social platform.
The personal detail at the end is optional. The cat and the coastal town are a convention and a slightly tired one. Include something personal if it is genuinely interesting or if the voice suits the book. Do not include one because the template had a slot.
Vary it by context. The bio inside the book, the one on the retailer page, and the one in a query letter to an agent are three different lengths for three different readers.
Where It Goes
Back matter. In Chicago's back matter sequence the biographical note comes near the end, after the index and the reading group guide, with only a colophon and errata able to follow it.
In practice, self published books usually place "About the Author" earlier in the back matter, before or after "Also by the Author", and no reader has ever been troubled by it. What matters more is that it comes after the story rather than before it.
Note that the "also by" list is a different element and belongs at the front of the book, on page ii, as covered in what is an "also by the author" page. The wider sequence is in ordering front matter and back matter.
What Deckle Does
Deckle has an About the Author document type, created from the Binder's Back Matter menu. It starts with a placeholder line reading [Author bio goes here.] for you to replace.
It has two layouts, set in the Styler under special pages:
- Prose, which is the plain text treatment.
- With photo, which places an author photograph alongside the text, with controls for the photo's position and size.
The photograph is a project level setting rather than something you insert into the document, chosen in Compile. It applies in both EPUB and print PDF export.
Position the page in the Binder where you want it, since export order follows Binder order. Deckle also has a separate Coming Next type if you want a teaser for the next book, so the bio does not have to carry that job.
For the surrounding elements, see what is back matter in a book.
Common Mistakes
- Treating the 100 to 150 word figure as a rule. No authority publishes one.
- Listing credentials irrelevant to the book. A reader is deciding whether to trust you with this story.
- Writing it once and never updating it. Each new book makes the previous bio wrong.
- Padding a debut bio. "Jane Doe lives in Bristol. This is her first novel." is a perfectly good bio.
- Using the same bio everywhere. The book, the retailer page and the query letter want different lengths.
- Putting a photograph in when you do not want one there. It is entirely optional, and Deckle's Prose layout omits it.
FAQ
Q: How long should an author bio be? A: No style authority specifies. Convention is roughly 50 to 150 words, one paragraph.
Q: Third person or first? A: Third is conventional. Chicago's own blog describes it as tradition rather than a rule, and questions it.
Q: What if I have no publications? A: Say so plainly. A short honest bio reads better than a padded one.
Q: Do I need an author photo? A: No. It is a convention, and many books do without.
Q: Front or back of the book? A: Back. Chicago places the biographical note near the end of the back matter.