Exploring a Genre’s Rhetorical Situation: Author Bios
In this genre analysis, the author biography will be explored from the context of a rhetorical situation. An author bio is a brief often written on the initial pages of a book, which summarizes the personal and professional background of the writer, his or her credentials, achievements. It establishes the reputation of the author as a way of connecting them to the readers of the text.
Audience
The author bio is often written to target readers- the community that would be interested in reading the book. Readers can range from students to teachers and business people. For instance, if the author writes about leadership books, then the readers would include company executives, educators, students aspiring to be leaders, and political leaders who want to improve their political and leadership status. It may not be easy to pinpoint the specific reading audience of books because different texts are read by people from varied backgrounds.
Readers of author bios come from different backgrounds, depending on the discipline being written about. For instance, a scientific book would attract readers from the scientific community. Marketing books attract readers from marketing executives, marketing students, and business people working on improving their brands. The authors know the type of audience which is targeted by their books and therefore try as much as possible to relate with both formally and in a friendly tone. The tone adopted in author bios is often inspirational and descriptive of past achievements and reputation, and the language used is friendly and rather informal. Such friendly communication makes the readers attracted and motivated to dig deeper into the book. The values embedded in author bios include inspiration, motivation, and authority.
Purpose
The author bio is where the author establishes himself or herself as the individual who ought to be read by the targeted market. The genre is written for the author to forge a connection with the potential readers and get them to trust them, believe in them, and want to read what they have to say. More importantly, the author bios establish the reputation and credibility for which the readers would be influenced to purchase and read the book. Most readers cite author reputation as one of the most significant factors that influence their buying decisions and choice of books to read. And such a reputation is built through achievements, milestones, and credibility as an authoritative writer. All these must be communicated in the biography.
Context
Author bios are used to introduce the author to the audience. It is not optional to write author bios. While they should be precise, author bios are expected to capture all the relevant information about the author that would make their audiences want to read their books. Just like a sales pitch gets products sold, an attention-grabbing author bio is a hook that gets the readers to want to dive into the main contents of the book. While a few authors often think about it, the author bio section of a book impacts sales, book marketing, social media, and the reputation of the book. Advancements in technology, social demographics, and cultural shifts are some contemporary issues that influence texts in the author bio. For instance, millennials would want to read about tech-savvy and modern-cultured authors, rather than people who wrote books for the 19th century. The status of the author in society influences the authorship of the bio. Influential and reputational authors in the society have their bios known to the public, and therefore do not need to write bios in all their books.