Author Resumes

Your Author Resume really does have to be a bit different from your standard Resume. Writing is your bread and butter so it’s obvious that your writing skills have to be on display from the off in your Resume. You should first of all put together an Author Cover Letter which really grabs the readers’ attention.

Your first sentence should be striking. You are trying to sell your work here and you need something that will immediately capture the imagination. Obviously a lot depends on what sort of material you produce but the same rules apply whatever type of Author you are. The difficulty for some writers is that they are creative but not necessarily sales people. You have to overlook this fact and really sell yourself. Your opening statement really needs to show what you can do. Hit the prospective employer with hard facts about your successful career to date. Drop names of publications you have worked with and let them know your most prestigious clients. This counts for a lot in the writing world with so much else down to personal taste. Try not to deviate from your goal here of making sure you are interviewed – you need the reader to want to look at your Author Resume so the information in your cover letter should merely allude to the depths of your experience.

Finish off your Author Cover letter with a clear call to action for the employer – to call you for interview!

Once you start work on your Author Resume, you should make sure you have lots of information about your past work. After your name, address and contact details you should head up your Author Resume with a title which reads Experience. Under this you should explain your specific niches you tend to work under, and this really should marry well with the job description. After this statement you need to get straight to the point and display a list of publications you have worked for. This should be broken down not chronologically, but into separate sections. You might have one section for books you have had published, and this could again be broken down into fiction and non-fiction. You might have a section on Magazine editorial articles, and after this you might have a section on online article distribution. The more impressive clients and publications you can mention, the better. You should mention under all headings which publications, and if possible, which articles. If you can give references to these there is a chance that whoever is reading might be able to locate your work online and judge for themselves the quality of your work.

Following this section your Author Resume should have a section devoted to your education. This section should run backwards from your most recent qualification, in most cases this would be your degree. Be sure to point out both major and minor sides of your degree and what you were awarded. You really want to keep your Author Resume short and sweet so don’t feel that you need to give reams of details beyond this point. As long as you have got all of your information across you should be in with a chance of an interview!

Sample Author Resumes

Technical Writer Resume