Authors always overthink this part of the query 😵‍💫

Why your bio feels so hard — and how to write it in three sentences.

Hi authors,

This week has genuinely been the highlight of my career, and I’m so grateful to every one of you who has ordered The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents or simply followed along with these lessons.

It’s the final day of Query Prep Week, and today we’re covering the last piece of your query letter — and the one authors tend to get the most (unnecessarily) anxious about:

Your bio.

Good news: this is the easiest section to write, and it carries far less weight than you think.

Your fifth lesson: keep your bio simple

Yesterday, you figured out how to pick appropriate comp titles. (Here's the link if you missed it.)

Now, it’s time to close out your query letter with some information about you.

The fear I hear constantly is some version of: “I’ve never published anything, so I have nothing to put in my bio. Won’t an agent immediately reject me for that?”

No. Agents sign debut authors with no writing publications or credentials ALL the time.

In fact, in our survey of agents we conducted for our book, 60% said the average new author they sign has “no formal writing experience or credentials.”

So don’t worry, agents don’t ask for a bio because they want to see a list of literary achievements. If you have experience, great! But if you’re a newbie, no sweat, and you’re in great company.

You simply want to tell the agent who you are in a few sentences and highlight anything that makes you especially suited to have written this particular book.

That’s it.

Your Day 5 assignment

Write your bio in 2-3 sentences. Here’s what belongs in it, in order of what I would mention first:

✅ Prior publications (if you have them). Short fiction, essays, journalism, anthologies, other books (even if in a different genre). If you don’t have any, skip this entirely. No problem.

✅ Writing credentials (if you have them). An MFA, a notable workshop or residency, an award. Only if it’s substantive — a general creative writing course anyone can take doesn’t necessarily need a mention. Again, skip if you don’t have any.

✅ What you do/did for work. This helps the agent understand how creative writing fits into your life and what background you bring to your story. It’s interesting for an agent to know, for example, if you’re an ER nurse writing a medical drama, a lawyer writing legal thrillers, or you spent a decade working in the region your novel is set in!

✅ Where you’re based. Agents will eventually need to know this if you engage in a professional relationship, and it’s helpful to know since they’re hearing from people all around the world.

And here’s what to leave out:

❌ Your age, or how long you’ve been working on the book

❌ Unrelated jobs or hobbies with no relevance to the book

❌ Your educational background unless relevant to what you’re writing

❌ Your plans for future books (you can discuss this with any interested agent on “the call”)

You now have a complete query letter!

Look at everything you’ve built this week:

• A manuscript you’ve confirmed is genuinely ready

• A killer description that makes agents want to read it

• Accurate genre, age category, and word count information

• Comp titles that prove there’s a market for your book

• A bio that contains what agents actually want to know

Everything else you need to know — including how to build an agent list, how to strategically send your queries, and how to interpret the replies — is in our book.

Thank you for making launch week so special. Now go forth and query with confidence!

Alyssa