Help. Bio for Amazon etc

[Ylfa]

this is really really making me squirm for some reason, but what do you put if you’d prefer to be quite secretive about who you are but you still have to do your bit to help sell the book? The agent has already written something but wants me to fill in quite detailed background stuff.

I’m just the illustrator if that makes any difference, and I would like more work but I am having a slight mental breakdown about the whole thing

Could you make it sound detailed, but without giving too much away, and add a few things that sound good but mean nothing?

Along the lines of
"X moved from Birmingham a few years ago to enjoy living in the countryside."
So you've given a bit of info-you moved from Birmingham, but not the info that matters (where you live now).
"X lives with her cat which has a strange friendship with a squirrel."
(you have a cat, but the 'friendship' is that it chases it when it sees it trying to get on the bird table.)

That sounds great! Thanks. I’ll try something along those lines 😊

Mine on amazon is something like 'Louisa grew up in Cheshire where she always wanted to be a writer but eventually followed a career in marketing. She started writing full time in 2018. Now living in Cornwall she spends her spare time surfing and walking with her husband and dog.'

Obvs the details are different but this is on Amazon and the bio on the back of my books.

That sounds fine 😀 I checked out other illustrator bios on Amazon and they’re all brief and breezy like that, yet the agent is asking for quite a lot of info. Maybe for the book website? I’ll sleep on it once more, it feels less stressful in the morning! Thanks 😊

OP, in addition to the above helpful advice, perhaps take an audience/buyer-based approach?

Who is the audience and what would they want to read to make them be more interested in your work? Are they mostly based in the UK or US? If they are in the US and you are not then unless you want to appear foreign, perhaps don't mention UK-specific regions/towns.

Have you read other bios on Amazon?

Good luck.

sorry, didn't finish - have you read other bios on Amazon and what do the highest rated/most popular say that you could echo??

Thanks, interesting points - I just answered the agent’s questions and she’s written something now so that’s a relief. 😅

Yifa, agents know the business and there's no point having a dog and practising your bark. Equally, you might want to run what the agent produces through a customer perspective to check she's done a good job.

What's your target age/genre and what's your approach?

Good luck.

This agent is only for this particular book, and she represents me only for the images used there (and only those that aren’t already sold or used elsewhere which is about maybe 1/3 of them). So as and when other publishers or whoever want to use an image she negotiates the fees and takes her cut etc. This book is young adult literary (issue) fiction. Highly unusual illustrated novel, really beautiful (if I do say so myself!) but not solely because of my ‘haunting’ images 😀, the whole design and even the paper is absolutely exquisite. I hope it does really well. It’s set in 90s London trance clubbing scene, will be out in January but it’s ready now and reviews should be happening soon 🤞

I wouldn’t be this stressed if it was my own book, they’ve spent a lot of money on this AND the author is terminally ill so it’s a little more pressured.

Good luck. I (and I expect many) would love to see it and would welcome a link, if you're happy to share when it's published.

Thank you so much 😊 I’d love to!

It’s available for pre-order already! 😮

In Bloom

More ethical link: www.hive.co.uk/Product/Feldman-Cordelia-Feldman/IN-BLOOM/25547841