5 Biography Ideas to Help Create a Stronger First Impression

Your artist biography is a major component of an effective press kit. The biography is what people use to form an opinion of who you are.

Without a quality biography, there’s not much to set you apart from other artists. While you would think that your music should speak for itself, not everyone has an ear for music. Various bloggers, industry insiders, and potential managers will base their first impression on your biography.

For this reason, you need to put thought into your biography. You can’t just throw together a few lines and hope that it works.

If you’re worried about the quality of your artist bio, then take a moment to review the following tips. Here are 5 ideas to help you create a stronger first impression by sprucing up your old biography.

#1 – Write Several Different Biographies

First, you should plan on writing several different biographies. You should write a short bio, a medium bio, and a long bio. There are some situations where you may require a longer bio and somewhere you’ll need a shorter one. This way, you’ll be prepared for any situation.

For example, a complete bio could have a space on your official website. A short bio could be used for your Spotify or iTunes profile, while a medium bio would be useful for your electronic press kit.

How long should you make these biographies? The length will vary:

• Short bio – about 200 words


• Medium bio – 300 to 500 words


• Long bio – 500 to 800 words

Most people don’t want to read a lengthy bio unless they’re really interested in the artist. Including the longer bio on your website, within its own page, will help increase the size of your site. Also, your diehard fans will be able to read your full story.

#2 – Stick to the Facts

The next tip is to stick to the facts. You should never embellish anything. You’re going to make these biographies available to the public. Anyone with a little bit of tech-savvy can search online and learn more about you. Don’t stretch the truth.

Sticking to the facts also means that you need to be straightforward when describing your music and your career. Don’t include hype words when writing about the release of an album.

Imagine that you’re a reporter writing a biography of someone else. After all, the bio needs to be written in third-person.

#3 – Structure Your Biography

The biography should be structured so that it’s easy to read. Each paragraph should have its own focus. When you write your biography, start by writing a paragraph for each of these topics:

1. Who you are and where you are from. Include bandmates if you’re in a band.


2. Introduce your latest release or album.


3. Discuss influences and experience.

These are the three main areas that you’ll explore in your biography. Start with 50 to 60 words for each paragraph, resulting in a short biography.

Then, expand on these areas and break the paragraphs into shorter paragraphs. Expand on this until you have 300 to 400 words. You now have a medium biography. You get the idea – start with the short biography and then expand on the details until you’ve got a long biography.

#4 – Create a Set of Fun Biographies

After you’ve written your short, medium, and long biographies, you should create a separate set where you let your creativity loose. These biographies can be used in blog posts or media outlets where people expect something less serious.

You could start by telling a funny story related to your music. You could talk about how you first got involved in music or relate how difficult it was to record your last album. Present something that helps people make a personal connection with your story. It helps humanize your brand.

These creative biographies can be used in the same places where you’d use a regular biography, depending on the situation. If you’re sending an electronic press kit to a record label that does things outside of the box, you could replace your standard bio with one of these more entertaining bios.

The purpose of the bio is to paint a picture of who you are in a very short amount of time. The creative flair of these bios will help get this across. Here are some more ideas for writing an entertaining biography:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W6_QweavSc

#5 – Rewrite Your Biography Several Times

As a final step, you should rewrite your biographies several times. Create a document that contains all three of your main biographies – short, medium, and long.

Then, make a copy of this document. Rewrite each line of the biography. Do this twice, so that you have three versions of each biography. The reason for doing this is that it requires you to take a long look at the details that you’ve included in your biography.

Each time that you rewrite your bio, you might notice something that you left out or come up with a more creative way to say the same thing. Basically, you’re revising and fine-tuning your bio.

Creating a compelling biography can help you get noticed. A bland bio can cause some people to overlook your music.

If you follow these steps, you’ll have at least 6 different biographies that you can pull out at any time. Also, don’t forget to update your biographies.

As new you release new music or book new tours, you should make changes to your biography. You don’t want someone to read your biography and assume that your previous album is your latest work.

You should include the date that you last edited the biography. Every two or three months, you should take another look at your biography and decide whether or not it needs to get updated.

Remember, not everyone is going to hear the same thing when they listen to your music. Sometimes, you need a little more than your music to make the right impression. And, your artist biography can help.

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Source: ArtistPR Artist Biography