Skip to main content

11 Great Author Bios on the Twitterverse and What Makes Them Exceptional

Lovelli has been on Twitter since 2009. She knows a thing or two about creating attention-getting author bios.

If your Twitter followers were riding behind you, how many miles would you have reached together before they turned the other way?

If your Twitter followers were riding behind you, how many miles would you have reached together before they turned the other way?

A Bio That Attracts Followers

Twitter is a good place for writers. In recent years, the social network has undergone several fundamental changes and necessary updates, allowing its users to do so much more with their timelines. People all over the world can now send longer short messages with the new 280-character limit. We can buy things directly using the buy button, use the platform to transfer money or funds, or even trade tweets for digital goodies.

With Twitter, we can now create moments, make lists, and send business cards. It is not only a great place to market a writer's work, but the social networking platform is also one of the places where you can land your next writing job! But before people can buy your work of staggering genius, they must first decide if they are going to follow you or not. Because before they can share your news articles, they must first decide if they are going to even read your tweets.

So once you've signed up for a Twitter account comes the tricky part. You must craft a Twitter bio that will get you followers. Or at least, not get you blocked.

What Do Followers Want?

Despite countless research-backed top tips to get more followers on Twitter, we don’t really know what followers want. But we do know that it isn't the revolutionary ideas that will rake in more followers, but simply being consistent and persistent, as well as staying true to your personal brand. Yes, branding! We can’t escape the fact that writers are now judged by their Twitter followers. People who want to hire others for their writing skills want to know how many followers and friends they have on social media, and they want to know what these authors tell their followers about themselves.

11 Amusing Author Bios

The idea is you want to tell the world that you're a writer. And if you are like me, not just any writer but a budding writer. When I got my first Twitter account in 2009, I honestly didn’t think too much about my handle. So I just randomly picked an available identifier that was easy to pronounce, grabbed a pretty picture of myself, and whipped up a merry bio (with numbers) and went on exploring the Twitterverse. There was no keywords, no linked website, and I was reluctant to tell anyone where I was.

A geography of Twitter replies from a moment in 2011.

A geography of Twitter replies from a moment in 2011.

So now we're taking a moment to go over the following entertaining 11 bios and identify why they are interesting or inspiring. These bios from the Twitterverse were hand-picked from real writers, famous internet personalities, the crème de la crème. Let's check them out, one by one.

"Please buy my book, I owe people money."

"Please buy my book, I owe people money."

Sixth Form Poet

We all know a person like this guy. His honest bio reminds me of a homeless person asking for money from passers-by. The tormented look on the face of his avatar is reflective of his struggle.

But what makes Sixth Form Poet's bio amusing, even if you don't know him, is that he is probably telling the truth. This author quickly offers the cover of his book "The Sixth Form Poet" and a link to his publication on Amazon. And so far he has gained 135K followers with just 8,631 tweets.

The fact that this poet is not yet a verified author on Twitter is something every striving author on social media can get behind. And so not surprisingly, Sixth Form Poet has appeared in numerous lists of people to follow, lists of the worst people on Twitter, and in various social media guides.

Adding "bestselling author" to your Twitter is always a good idea.

Adding "bestselling author" to your Twitter is always a good idea.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan wants us to immediately learn that he is a bestselling author and that we can contact him. So first he establishes himself as an authority in the publishing industry. Adding that he is a business advisor, to let us know what he’s probably doing when he’s not writing. Also adding to all of that, that he’s engaged to a certain person to show us that he is able to establish a relationship with the opposite sex. Can you see why this is amusing? Because it’s on point and it works. Kudos to him for using a neat cartoon avatar of himself.

A cloud that barfs out rainbow is the cutest thing we've seen so far. Notice the accompanying copy is a play of the popular "Eat Pray Love," a 2010 romantic comedy film.

A cloud that barfs out rainbow is the cutest thing we've seen so far. Notice the accompanying copy is a play of the popular "Eat Pray Love," a 2010 romantic comedy film.

Arina Kharlamova

This author is so quirky and relatable. I sometimes think that I was a book in another life myself. Arina Kharlamova, however, does not let that fact get in the way of her doing her job. She tells us the serious work that she does: “I bang my head against walls to bring the words out for women + cannabis brands.” That really is what books should do, don't you think?

People who know what they're born to do in life are the best people.

People who know what they're born to do in life are the best people.

Greg Miller

This author bio is amusing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, not everybody can reach the kind of realization Greg Miller has about his life. Not many people know that they are born to eat chicken wings. Also, not many people actually eat chicken wings where I live.

Next, his chosen Twitter handle, @GameOverGreggy is a suitable but rather depressing username for a bio, given the fact that he's into video games. We further learn that he works for an online publication called Kinda Funny and how to reach him for business enquiries. For many people, that’s all that matters, that you’re available and that they can reach you.

Include other Twitter handles of your related publications.

Include other Twitter handles of your related publications.

Kate Chow

Kate Chow has proven that you can use a cool snap as Twitter avatar. She puts a lovely picture of her and her pet, which is clever, because this always, always, always works. It also helps that she includes on her bio that she is a reporter.

Where are you located? Or rather, where would you prefer to be located? In this case, it's "everywhere."

Where are you located? Or rather, where would you prefer to be located? In this case, it's "everywhere."

Lance Weiler

The thing with Twitter is you have options. Add a location to either an individual tweet or to your overall bio to let people know where you're based. This is not a default feature, and Twitter's discoverability option goes even further. It lets you choose additional ways to be found: by email address or by phone. Lance Weiler’s bio sets his location to be “everywhere” by default, as most of us sometimes would rather be.

Adding your newly published book title in all caps also works.

Adding your newly published book title in all caps also works.

Alanna Okun

Naturally, you would want your followers to know about your most recent publication, or when it comes to an online article, a link. Alanna Okun includes the title of her new publication on her bio, and so this is perfect for potential readers or people looking to buy her work.

Let followers know what you want them to do.

Let followers know what you want them to do.

Alex Mathers

For this author, all signs point to his site. We quickly learn that his site is for creative people, so we can quickly assess if we’d be getting the most of his work. Alex Mathers has a straightforward and easy-to-follow bio, which seems to be working well for his Red Lemon Club.

Tell the Twitterverse about the things you love.

Tell the Twitterverse about the things you love.

Phil Plait a.k.a Bad Astronomer

Phil Plait's bio is so simple that it got me thinking, why didn't I think of that?! Obviously the Bad Astronomer is passionate about science and wants us to visit his blog. But he also goes beyond what is obvious and got personal by sharing with us how he uses "likes" as bookmarks. I suspect that many people do that, too, and by relating to them on that level, the science writer could win new followers.

List all the publications you've been with, and let people establish your authority.

List all the publications you've been with, and let people establish your authority.

Buster

With his Twitter bio, Buster lets us know who he is, where he works now, and where he has been. This might not work for new writers without any formal editorial positions at any major publications. But that's not all, in addition to all the formalities, he also included in his bio a sidekick project @750words.

Or, you can say on your bio that you only write occasionally.

Or, you can say on your bio that you only write occasionally.

Katie Mack

I know a lot of people who can and who actually write aside from their day job, but it is usually not easy to express that in your bio. In Katie Mack's case, she listed her freelancing casually among other things that she is, and that is fine. We first learn that she is an astrophysicist or cosmologist before her freelancing career.

Let Your Personality Shine

Remember, your Twitter bio is your chance to let your personality shine. It is the one thing that tells your followers what added value, if any, you will bring to their lives. The profile includes your name and your photo, which should inform everyone who you are and what you look like. But depending on your personal branding strategy, there are countless ways to tell the world about yourself. The 11 Twitter bios above are just some of the many more authors and creatives out there worth following on Twitter, so don’t miss out on all the fun.

twitter-bios

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2018 Lovelli Fuad

Comments

Lovelli Fuad (author) from Southeast Asia and the Pacific on September 28, 2018:

You're welcome, Glenn! I am so glad that you found the article useful. Reviving your twitter account to stay relevant to your followers is a good decision. I'll stay on the lookout for more ways on how to spruce up those tweets.

Glenn Stok from Long Island, NY on September 10, 2018:

I have to thank you for writing this article Lovelli. You gave me a tremendous amount of energy to push forward with reestabling my twitter account with a more engaging bio and a better way to make use of my tweets. I’m going to get started now making those changes.

Even though my twitter account is many years old, I look forward to bringing it back to life with a rewarding experience not only for me, but for my followers.

Related Articles
https://turbofuture.com/internet/twitter-bios
turbofuture.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-05
620974
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:LOIOK3L4CZJ27BKKU2EVU2HWWX6CHC75
<urn:uuid:46b68ec9-e89a-442c-96e7-61c518fa77fa>
2022-01-21T22:29:11Z
151.101.66.98
text/html
sha1:GNESCU6XP36ZMN3GGMGHZEJAWTVFYG3K
<urn:uuid:7f719e47-3356-4d0c-bec7-6a5d0dff3072>
https://turbofuture.com/internet/twitter-bios
response
<urn:uuid:642390bd-00e4-4bd6-bac7-9fc3c1a5215b>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-05
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for January 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-181
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.3-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/