One of my friends recently came up with a great business idea; not only that, she has the space already picked out, and it’s affordable. Her idea is something I can get behind, too–in theory. In practice, however, I’m discovering that there’s really only a couple things I actually give a @#!$ about. And one of them isn’t trying to entice people to spend money at my place of business.
The funny thing is I already have a side-venture. I write and silkscreen t-shirts, which I sell at www.zencommandments.com. I like to write tees, and I love to wear them. Heaven knows, though, I’m terrible about self-promotion. It takes everything I have to set up stock on a folding table at Christmastime. Trying to drive traffic to my web site is beyond the realm of possibility.
There’s only so much “me” that I can promote. Query letters are excruciating! I swear it takes me as long to write a bio as it does to write the entire novel. (If I wanted to talk about myself, I would still be writing poetry.) But those are all smooth sailing compared to asking people to part with their money on a daily basis, and then tabulating those dollar bills to pay my mortgage.
The thought of having to rely on people’s generosity for my entire take home pay makes me squeamish.
I wish I could get behind a solid entrepreneurial effort like my friend’s idea–it would be a ball to work together. But I really have no energy for such a venture. I need a steady source of income until I can generate it myself with writing.
I’m selling myself this year. I hope.
Until then, I will cash my steady checks and accept the fact that I’m bored because I’m fearful.
You make a good point about how time-consuming it is to write a professional bio. I write them for a living and even I find it difficult to write my own! I think for most people the hardest part of writing a professional bio is choosing what to put in and what to leave out. Because after all, a bio is supposed to be short. But most of us have done lots of different things in our work careers. How do you decide what to focus on?
There’s a simple answer: focus on what’s going to be most relevant and impressive to your target reader!
You see, a bio is not a resume. You don’t have to list everything you’ve ever done. Just focus on the parts that are going to “sell” you to your reader.
For example, when I wrote my bio for my site http://www.HowToWriteBio.com, I focused on my technical writing and business coaching background - which is the information that shows that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to writing bios.
Because that’s what potential clients want to know about me in this context. They don’t really care about all the other types of jobs I have held.
A bio is a little advertisement for you. So think about who will be reading your bio and what you want them to know about you. Then advertise your best and most relevant features!