Your Query Bio Doesn’t Need to Be Impressive. It Needs to Be You.

If you’ve been in a writing workshop, a panel, or query review, you may have had a moment where you thought: Oh no. Everyone else has an MFA, a prize, a fellowship, and a column. And I have…a cat and an opinion about Scrabble. This post is for you. And we promise it’s good news.

What Happens When Writers See Impressive Bios

At a recent Manuscript Academy Live Agent Feedback Panel, agent Eric Smith (Neighborhood Literary) reviewed query letters submitted by our writers. Some of those bios were extraordinary–Iowa Writers’ Workshop, published theses, a decade of professional tango, forensic psychology degrees. The kind of credentials that make the rest of us quietly close our laptops and panic about how we’ve spent our time on Earth.

And here’s what Jessica Sinsheimer said, right in the middle of the panel, when she noticed the chat filling up with panicking writers:

“Please don’t be intimidated. The average query in my inbox is, ‘Dear Jessica, take this or your agency will fail.’ This group is a very select group of writers who really care, who have done the research, who are later in the process than most of the people that we see.”

The impressive bios you see at Manuscript Academy events like these are the exception, not the rule.

Same with the impressive queries–we have to pause each session to say “This is NOT normal. Please don’t compare yourselves.”

What Agents Actually Want in a Fiction Bio

Eric Smith was direct about this: “My favorite bios just let me know a little about you. When I’m not busy writing, I can be found fishing and playing video games–stuff like that works totally fine.”

Jessica put it even more simply: “Publishing credits are icing, not cake. What I’m looking for is: do you sound like someone I want to call for the next decade?”

That’s the real question your bio is answering. Not are you accomplished? but are you someone I want to work with for a long time?

Know what conveys that? Being a real person. Having specific, warm, human details that make an agent smile at their screen.

You play in a national Scrabble tournament? Great. You have one large orange cat and one small white dog and you find this arrangement chaotic but worth it? Fantastic.

You sing folk music with a group of friends every Thursday? That’s a bio. Even if you sing off-key. In fact, for your bio (though maybe not for your friends) that’s even better.

That’s a person. That’s someone an agent can picture calling with editorial notes for years to come.

The One Thing That Actually Matters for Fiction

For fiction, your bio is not a resume. It’s an introduction.

It’s the equivalent of meeting someone at a party and deciding whether you want to keep talking to them. Do you start with weather?

Not ideal, but you can.

Better, start with where you live and how you have fun.

Think about it from the agent’s perspective: if they offer representation, they’re signing up for years of communication with you. They want to know who you are.

Are you likely to have humor? Are you likely to freak out if they’re one minute late?

A list of credentials tells them what you’ve done. A genuine, specific personal detail tells them who you are.

Both can work.

But only one of them is required.

When Credentials Do Matter

It’s worth being clear: for nonfiction, this changes. A memoir, essay collection, or narrative nonfiction book requires what agents call “platform”–not just social media following, but the full picture of why you are the right person to write this particular book. Your degrees, your lived experience, your published essays and articles, your career–all of it factors in.

For nonfiction, the bio section is essentially answering the question: Why are you the only person who could have written this? That’s a different ask. Lean into it. If you’re writing nonfiction, check out this post about platform.

But for fiction? Unless your real-world credentials are directly relevant to the book–you’re a nurse writing a medical thriller, a chef writing a culinary mystery, a former competitive figure skater writing about competitive figure skaters–your credentials are genuinely optional. Nice to have. Not necessary. Icing, not cake. (And no judgement if you’re one of the people who, at birthday parties, eats the icing and leaves the cake.)

Some Permission, In List Form

What a Great “Simple” Bio Sounds Like

Here’s the kind of bio that Eric Smith said makes him happy:

“When I’m not writing, I can be found [specific thing]. I live in [place] with [some combination of people, pets, or plants]. [One warm, human sentence].”

That’s it.

It works because it’s specific, it’s warm, and it gives the agent something to remember you by–something that feels like a person, not a résumé.

Keep in mind that your future agent will be calling you up for decades, if all goes well. Make that sound fun.

Compare that to a bio that opens with “I hold a degree in X from Y University and have been published in Z” and reads like a LinkedIn summary.

Both are fine. But only one of them makes an agent want to call you. We can only small talk about your alma mater so long before we move onto the weather, and then…well, let’s just say our caffeine bill is going way up.

One More Thing

Eric also mentioned, almost as an aside, that two of the memoirs he sold last year came from very different places. One author had published articles and essays in a number of places. The other had published nothing at all.

Both sold.

The books were right. The authors were right for the books. The bios reflected that. And that was enough.

So if you’re sitting with a half-written query letter, staring at the bio section and wondering whether you’re “allowed” to be there–of course you are! Please don’t be intimidated.

As they say, if you’re the most accomplished person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. You’ll learn the most with people who stretch what you think is possible. (And our events are full of brilliant, kind people. Check out our event calendar here.)

So yes. You are more than welcome here.

Bring your cat. Bring your Scrabble tile collection.

Bring your genuine, specific, unrepeatable self.

That’s what the bio is for.

---

For more on the query letter itself, check out our Complete Guide To Pitching Agents. And if you’re still stressed, check out this post on Why Submission Anxiety Is Actually A Good (And Useful) Thing.

Looking for your perfect agent fit? Check out our free sister site, ManuscriptWishList.com.

Still feeling stuck?

Join our FREE Facebook Group (about 8,000 of your newest writing friends!) and ask the hive mind for suggestions

Check out the books agents in your genre are mentioning