Jim Butcher: How to build a Villain

I love Jim Butcher's series, The Dresden Files. I marvel at his well-rounded characters, his engaging fight scenes, the way he chains together scenes and sequels to create reader engagement, and the way he seamlessly weaves in backstory. Oh, and his fight scenes are epic. And that's just off the top of my head! Now that's my kind of writer.

Given that lead-in, you can understand why I get excited when I find an article Jim Butcher has written about the craft of writing. Today was a very good day. I found, "How to build a Villain," on a the site: Magical Words: Writing tips and publishing advice for aspiring novelists.

So, how do you build a villain? Jim Butcher writes:

One of the most critical skills an aspiring writer needs is the ability to build a solid villain. Even the greatest protagonist in the world cannot truly shine without an equally well-rendered opposition. The converse of that statement isn’t true, though—if your protagonist is a little shaky but your villain absolutely shines, you can still tell a very successful story.

How to Build a Powerful Villain:

1. Motivation 

"Your villain has to be motivated even more strongly than your protagonist, to move in a direction that is opposite to your protagonist’s goal. The drama and tension of the entire story is based upon those two opposing forces. Buffy versus vampires. Sith versus Jedi. Spy versus spy."

2. Power

"Your villain has to have enough power, of whatever nature, at his disposal to make him a credible threat to your hero. Personally, I believe that the more the villain outclasses the hero, the better. David wouldn’t have gotten nearly the press he did if Goliath had been 5’9” and asthmatic."

3. Admirable Qualities

"Every serious 'big bad villain' you write ought to have facets of his personality that are desirable, even admirable. Perhaps your villain is exquisitely polite and courteous, extremely perceptive, remarkably intelligent, or possessed of a skewed sense of honor that makes him something more than a simple black-hat. In point of fact, a villain might be loaded down with admirable qualities, all of which should serve to only make him even more dangerous to your protagonist. Think of the Mayor of Sunnydale in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Except for the part where he was trying to turn himself into a giant demon and devour the graduating class, he was a great guy!"

4. Individuality

"A good villain needs to be instantly recognizable to your reader, so that even if he hasn’t appeared in a hundred pages, your reader will recognize that character instantly. You can achieve this pretty effectively using Tags and Traits, identifiers for a character which reserve particular props, personality traits, and words to associate with any given character. You can find an article that goes into them in greater depth on my livejournal at jimbutcher.livejournal.com."


Above, Jim Butcher mentioned an article he posted on his Livejournal site. He has actually posted quite a few excellent articles to that blog.

Jim Butcher goes on to say:

"I have a standard operating procedure for creating characters. I keep a dossier on each of them. When the character is created, I open a new file and fill in name, goal, description, tags, and traits. I write down a brief summary of what their capabilities are, and more fully describe their goals and motivations. If it’s a recurring character, I keep a running log of their development: how have the events of the story world affected them? How have they changed as a result? What are they likely to want in the future?

"If you’re going to take anything away from this post, it’s this: Villains are even MORE important to build well than are heroes.

"Spend every bit as much time and effort crafting your villain as you do the hero, and make sure that you motivate your villains every bit as thoroughly as you do your protagonist, or your story risks a lack of depth and contrast. In other words, it’ll be the one thing a fiction writer cannot afford to be: boring."

That is the end of the article but in the comment section Jim Butcher continues to give helpful advice to writers.

Question: “I’m intrigued by this idea of Tags and Traits. I’m guessing these are like the natural evolution of Homeric Epithets?”

Jim's Answer: I haven’t heard them described in those terms, but yeah, that fits, though the goal is to use it with a little more subtlety. Tags are words you use to physically describe any given character. Traits are aspects of their personality.

For example, the tags for Karrin Murphy in the Dresden Files are words like “tiny,” “cute,” and “blond.” Her traits are words like, “tough,” “smart,” and “fierce.”

The goal is to create a kind of mental signature for any given character, so that the reader need not consciously labor to identify who is speaking, and so that a very clear impression of the character is created when that character is introduced.

It all feeds into the idea that the goal, as a writer, is to create a kind of virtual reality in the head of the reader. That works best when the actual mechanics of words and sentences are as transparent as you can possibly make them. Part of making them transparent is to identify a few words or phrases so strongly with a given character that the reader doesn’t really notice the words themselves–they only see the character to which you’ve connected those words and phrases.

Question: “I wonder how important it is to reveal outright the villain’s weakness? Or is that revealed by the demise of the villain in the story process?”

Jim's Answer: Who says the villain has to /have/ a weakness? Though if you are going to go for a villain with a 2-meter exhaust port vulnerable to photon torpedoes, you can certainly do that. I did it with the Loup-garou in Fool Moon, after all. But most of the villains in the Dresden Files don’t have a silver-bullet weakness. It makes their takedown (if they’re going to be taken down) a little too simple and predictable.

“But there are plenty of great villains that don’t have anything admirable about them. They’re just freaking monsters. Like The Joker, or Darth Sidious. I do prefer admirable villains, but i’d be lying if i didn’t enjoy the occasional complete monster. Are they just the exception that proves the rule or what?”

The Joker is crazy brilliant, literally, and he has style. It’s a bombastic and cartoony style, much of the time, but it’s still style. And Darth Sidious just wasn’t all /that/ great a villain, at least in my opinion–but even so, he was intelligent, eloquent, and a capable administrator. I mean, he conquered a whole galaxy. You don’t do that without at least a little talent. :)

“when I write a villain character, I seem to get so into “it” that I sometimes find it hard to not keep wanting to take it further and further (great for future books), but once I get to the point where “hey, it’s time to end this book”, how do you cut yourself off an say enough!”

Just remember that the end of your story is the answer to a question: will your hero succeed in his goals when the villain gets in his way? If your hero has achieved his goals, you’re done, that’s it, wrap it up and start on the next story.

“Is it dangerous to spend too much time with the villain/antagonist up front like this? I have a strong and familiar archetype for the protagonist and I keep saying “ah, he’ll be no problem when I get to his part”, so I keep putting off the details of his development. Conversely, the antagonist, being an immortal, figures heavily into the state of the world and the trials that will be put before the hero. Am I falling into a noob-trap here?”

Possibly, but it’s not one that can’t work out well for you. I mean, look at how well that one went for JK Rowling. When you think about it, Voldemort shaped absolutely EVERYTHING that happened in the Harry Potter books, right down to the scar on the hero’s head and his mysterious ability to speak with snakes. Why did it work? Because Voldemort, with his own actions, forged Harry into the means of his own demise. Harry, meanwhile, is sort of unremarkable as a hero, in a personal sense. He’s brave, but no braver than many other folk in the HP universe. He’s smart, but not the smartest around. He’s not even the best at magic. Voldemort made everything about him that was truly remarkable.

That said, I think it’s /far/ smarter to build your hero with every bit as much attention as your villain. Batman versus the Joker works so well precisely because they were designed with one another in mind, as champions of order and chaos, respectively. More importantly, it gives you double the audience appeal potential. I’ve read books where I just couldn’t stand the heroes, but loved the villains, and so continued. But the books that stay with me the longest are the ones who are solid all the way across the board, who fully engage me with their entire cast.

Question: “What is your approach, or rather your thoughts so I don’t make you feel all spoilery, on hinting at the big bad’s fingerprints in the early parts of your story arc without jumping the gun and revealing too much about them and their agenda?”

That’s mostly a matter of taste, but do yourself a favor and assume that the readers are smart. They are. Drop hints without being too overly dramatic about it, if you’re going to keep the identity of your villain hidden for a while, and make sure that you’ve got a villain to defeat in effigy before the end of the story. Think of, oh, Darth Maul and Palpatine. Palpatine may have been briefly stymied by the Jedi, but Maul got chopped up and thrown down a killin’ hole. His death was symbolic of Palpatine’s demise–literally, since Palpatine got thrown down a killin’ hole too.

“Having read all of the Dresden based novels, I am quite aware that your protagonist is deeply flawed and often those who act as antagonists display character traits that are admirable. Given this near equality, how does one avoid having everyone be candidates for “villian” status?”

Storytelling craft is not about making moral judgments of the relative values, ethically or otherwise, of your character’s actions. The readers will do that for themselves. For craft purposes, the protagonist is the one who is going after his goal. Your antagonist is getting in the way of that goal. “Hero” and “villain” are both separate terms which can overlap with protagonist and antagonist, but they aren’t absolutely bound together. Think of The Fugitive again. Sam Gerard is a perfect example of an antagonist who is, in fact, personally heroic. Artemis Fowl and Megamind are good examples of a protagonist who is personally a villain.

But don’t try to make the call for your readers. Just tell the story. They’ll do the rest on their own.

That's it! If you like my content please consider supporting me on my Patreon account. If you support the blog for just one dollar a month I'll send you my book, "The Structure of a Great Story."

By the way, I've added a tier to my Patreon where I'll critique about 2,000 words per month. Send me anything! A short story, a section of your work-in-progress, a script, a recipe! It doesn't matter. I've limited this tier to 15 people.

Thanks for reading and I'll talk to you again soon! :-)

Previously Unpublished Writer Becomes Famous Overnight

What would it be like to go from never having any of your writing published, not even a short story, to signing a six figure contract with Doubleday? Pretty darn nice, I imagine! This is what happened to Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus.

Alexandra Alter at The Wall Street Journal writes:

Ms. Morgenstern has had an unorthodox rise to literary stardom. A 33-year-old Massachusetts native with pale skin and wide-set amber eyes, Ms. Morgenstern has never left the country and just applied for a passport. She studied theater and lighting design at Smith College; after graduating in 2000, she bounced around as an office temp.

She was miserable, "making photocopies for law professors who couldn't work the copy machine." After a few years, with her husband's support, she quit temping and devoted herself to painting and writing, spending long, solitary hours in their home in Boston. She sold her artwork for $20 to $30 a print. In 2005, she crashed out a manuscript during National Novel Writing Month, a kind of literary endurance race for writers who goad one another into completing a 50,000-word novel in four weeks. About halfway through, her project stalled.
"I got really bored with what I was working on, so I sent all the characters to the circus," she says.

Very little from that early draft survived, but she had an idea that excited her. She worked in bursts over the next several years, writing a sprawling, plotless series of vignettes featuring magicians, acrobats, and a pair of psychic twins. Thirty literary agents rejected her. "They very politely told me it was a mess," she says.

At one point she grew so discouraged that she considered destroying the book. Her husband hid a hard copy of the novel from her in a drawer. Finally, a few agents got back to her with more-encouraging rejections, suggesting that the book could work with major revisions.

Ms. Morgenstern added more plot and streamlined the circus vignettes. She delivered a more conventional novel centering on two characters: Celia, the daughter of a famous magician, and Marco, an orphan who was trained by a rival magician. The older magicians enroll their students in a magic-off, using a nocturnal circus as a setting for their tricks and illusions. Their creations include a magic carousel with mystical animals that come to life, a floating cloud maze and a frozen garden with delicate, magically regenerating blossoms of ice. Despite their handlers' warnings, Celia and Marco fall in love.
Ms. Morgenstern's agent, Richard Pine of Inkwell Management, sent out the completed manuscript and received bids from several publishers. He sold it a week after sending it out. Ms. Morgenstern was so stunned that she left the publisher's check on her desk for a month, unsure what to do with it.

....

Last month, Summit brought Ms. Morgenstern to San Diego for Comic-Con, a comic-book and pop-culture convention, and introduced her to "Twilight" fans in a press event leading into appearances by the stars of the movies. Summit distributed 50 advance copies of "The Night Circus" to "alpha" Twilight fans and bloggers and other teen taste arbiters.

Ms. Morgenstern finds the attention and hype overwhelming and worries about a backlash. In addition to the movie, there's talk of a videogame and a stage production. A Los Angeles perfume maker is developing a line of circus-themed scents based on the book.

Her Doubleday editor suggested she write a "Night Circus" prequel, exploring the rivalry between the two magicians who pit Marco and Celia against each other. She's not so sure she wants to write more about the circus. "It's putting a lot of pressure on me in terms of 'what's she going to do next?' " she says.

Ms. Morgenstern is settling into a new condo in Boston, where she lives with a pair of pale, otherworldly-looking fluffy cats, surrounded by an odd assortment of antiques and art objects. A black bowler hat sits on top of a bookshelf. One stalled antique clock hangs on a wall; another sits on the floor. Much of her artwork—which, like her writing, is pastiche-like and layered, with bits of paper, clock gears and sketches piled onto canvases and wooden boxes—is still packed up. She recently separated, amicably, from her husband of nearly five years, and is scrambling to unpack before a six-week, 14-city book tour.

Her office décor includes a Ouija board, a Harry Potter-themed Hogwarts throw pillow and a deck of hand-painted, black-and-white Tarot cards that she created while working on her novel. Ms. Morgenstern hopes to publish the deck, and it's already getting some exposure. One of the images, a black-and-white-striped hot-air balloon, was turned into a poster advertisement for "The Night Circus." Her publicity team sent 500 of them to booksellers all over the country.

Thanks to Passive Guy for positing a link to Alexandra Alter's article.

Harper Collins And The Great Bookcover Rip-Off

These covers look similar, don't they? LK Rigel purchased the artwork, named "City of Angels," used as the basis for her cover of Spiderwork from artist, Nathalia Suellen in 2009. HarperCollins contacted Ms. Suellen in May of 2011 and attempted to buy City of Angels from her for use on Alex Flinn's upcoming book, Bewitching.

Nathalia, the artist, writes in her blog (Wed, Aug 17th):

The story starts with Harper Collins (Illingworth, Sasha) inviting me to create a cover to Bewitching. They wanted something similar with "City of Angels". I remember I had refused it because this artwork had been already sold to another book and also because of my personal opinion about the theme. However it looks like they got angry with me and decided to copy my artwork. I have just received an email from LK RIGEL asking If I had sold my artwork "City of Angels". And sure I said no. I got crazy checking out the link she sent me [link]

I followed the link Nathalia gave but it seems the artwork has been removed.

Even though Harper Colins offered Nathalia 4,000 dollars (Jane, at Dear Author writes that this is a normal amount of money for cover art) she rejected the offer because she felt it was inappropriate for the artwork to appear on the cover of more than one book. Although Nathalia is obviously a gifted artist, her integrity is what made me bookmark her name on my site. Currently, I do my own covers, but if I ever want an artist to do custom work for me, she is someone I would want to work with.

Did the artist's refusal discourage Harper Collins? It seems not. In the image, above, you see the cover Harper Collins sent Alex Flinn  for her new novel, Bewitching. On the left is the image Nathalia created for LK Rigel. Yes, one could conceivably argue that the resemblance between the two covers is by chance, but that argument would seem more plausible if Harper Collins hadn't tried to buy the artwork used for the cover of Spiderwork. As it is, it seems that Harper Colins thought that if they couldn't buy it then they would just appropriate it.

I came across this story through The Passive Voice blog and PG has an excellent analysis as well as links to all the tasty little bits of the story. He, being a lawyer, talks about the legal issues involved in this situation. It is well worth the read.

Here are the articles I drew from in creating this blog post:
- Thursday Midday Links: What’s a Little Cover Art Copying Between Friends?
- Not a Good Week for Harper Collins – Cover Art Rip-Off
- Rip Off, Harper Collins Publisher

Highest Paid Writers of 2011

The earnings below are from sales made between May 2010 and April 2011.

#1 James Patterson: 84 million
- Alex Cross series
- Maximum Ride series
- Many, many, others

#2 Danielle Steel: 35 million
- Jewels, The Ghost, Matters of the Heart

#3 Stephen King: 28 million
- The Shining, Salem's Lot, It

#4 Janet Evanovich: 22 million
- Stephanie Plum

#5 Stephenie Meyer: 21 million
- Twilight Series

#6 Rick Riordan: 21 million
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

#7 Dean Koontz: 19 million
- Demon Seed, Strangers

#8 John Grisham: 18 million
- The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Runaway Jury

#9 Jeff Kinney: 17 million
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid

#10 Nicholas Sparks: 16 million
- The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, A Walk to Remember

This information is based on these articles:
- Highest Paid Authors of 2011
- James Patterson brand makes him worlds best-paid writer
- James Patterson tops Forbes list of top-earning writers

Simon Wood's Road to Writerly Riches

Simon Wood has written a guest post on JA Konrath's blog that details his long journey down the road to success. He writes:

I have to admit sales were slow at first, but to be honest, I wasn’t approaching it right. To use a Field of Dreams analogy, just because I built it didn't mean anyone would come. Success in the eBook market thrives on endorsements from trusted voices and you find them in the blogosphere . I sent review copies, essays and articles about my books to any and all blogs and websites with a good following. This helped get the word out and it showed itself in sales. With ten titles to my name, trying to promote them all at once was monumental and diluted my message.

In April, I decided to focus on title at a time. I focused on ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN first, as this was originally my debut novel. The approach worked. I had some good feedback coming from a lot of sources. Then momentum took over, I started to see various eBook and Kindle blogs talking about ACCIDENTS or one of my other titles almost daily. Sales climbed from April to June and ACCIDENTS hit Amazon’s Top 100 titles.

Then in one of those serendipitous events, Amazon sent out an email blast about the book at the end of June. This catapulted ACCIDENTS to the #2 spot at Amazon over the 4th of July weekend, just behind Janet Evanovich’s latest.

Proving the adage that a rising tide lifts all boats, I saw incremental sales growth across the board as ACCIDENTS spearheaded the rise to the top. THE FALL GUY cracked the Top 100. I have six titles in the Hardboiled Top 20. WE ALL FALL DOWN looks to be the next title to go big judging by its rising numbers.

So what does this mean for me now? It means a few things.

Read the rest here: Guest Post from Simon Wood

Click here for a list of Simon Wood's books.

Janet Evanovich & Kathryn Stockett: The newest writers to sell a million Kindle Books

On August 16th Amazon announced that Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum books) and Kathryn Stockett (The Help) are the newest authors to sell over a million ebooks on Amazon.

Current members of the Kindle Million Club are:
- Stieg Larsson
- James Patterson
- Nora Roberts
- Charlaine Harris
- Lee Child
- Suzanne Collins
- Michael Connelly
- John Locke

“Kathryn Stockett is the first debut novelist to join the Million Club, and Kindle customers were highly engaged with her book right from its publication,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. “It’s as exciting to see Kindle readers propel a new author’s career as it is to see them add to the success of a long-time Amazon best-selling author like Janet Evanovich.”

"Wow! I'm thrilled to join such a talented group of writers who've also reached this million-copy milestone,” said Janet Evanovich. “I'm so grateful to my readers and look forward to reaching more milestones with them and with Amazon in the years to come."

Janet Evanovich is the #1 best-selling author of the Stephanie Plum novels as well as 12 romance novels, the Alexandra Barnaby novels and graphic novels, “Wicked Appetite” (the first book in the Lizzy and Diesel series,) and “How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author.” Her latest novel, “Smokin’ Seventeen,” has spent over 100 days on the Kindle Best Seller list.

Kathryn Stockett is the author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller “The Help.” After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. “The Help” is her debut novel, and on August 10, 2011, the movie adaptation hit theaters across the U.S.

Read the rest of the article here: Janet Evanovich and Kathryn Stockett Join the Kindle Million Club

The Key To Selling Books: Word of Mouth

David Gaughran writes that, "Word-of-mouth is the only thing that ever really sells books."

While a glowing review in the New York Times will undoubtedly shift some copies, if the limited amount of people that actually read the reviews (and then purchase the book), don’t then spread the word, the sales bump will be temporary.

The 21st century world-weary reader is a hard person to reach. Our environment has become so saturated with advertisements that we tend to tune them out. Broadcasters need to resort to tricks like raising the volume levels of the ads to force us to pay attention.

We ignore ads because we don’t trust them. Exaggerated claims of the merits of one brand over another have been with us for so long that our automatic disposition seems to be skeptical towards the alleged virtues of any advertised product.

However, we still trust each other. If your neighbor tells you about a new detergent that actually does get wine stains out of a white shirt, or an insurance company that really will be there for you when things go wrong, that carries more weight than anything the cleverest advertising company can come up with.

Read the rest here: Word-of-Mouth in Action

Amazon could sell tablet for as low as $249

Lance Whitney, writing for Digital Media:

Amazon could sell its upcoming tablet for less than it costs to make but still take home a profit in the long run, according to tech industry analyst Tim Bajarin.

Discussing Amazon's expected tablet in a column for PC Magazine last week, Bajarin derived an estimated cost for the device of $300 based on information from various sources. Assuming Amazon then discounts the retail price, consumers could pay as little as $249, projects the analyst.

Read more: Analyst: Amazon could sell tablet for as low as $249

Amazon signs self-help author Timothy Ferriss

The guardian.co.uk writes:

The online retailer's aggressive move into publishing has continued with its signing of bestselling self-help author Timothy Ferriss
...
Ferriss is author of the New York Times bestsellers The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek, which promise, respectively, to help guide readers "to rapid fat-loss, incredible sex and becoming superhuman" and to "escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich". The 4-Hour Chef will, said Amazon, build upon the "4-hour" philosophy "by transforming the way we cook and eat". It will publish the book in print, digital and audio formats next April.

Ferriss, whose previous books were published by Random House imprint Crown, said that his decision to move to Amazon Publishing "wasn't just a question of which publisher to work with. It was a question of what future of publishing I want to embrace.

"My readers are migrating irreversibly into digital, and it made perfect sense to work with Amazon to try and redefine what is possible," said the author in a statement. "This is a chance to really show what the future of books looks like, and to deliver a beautiful experience to my readers, who always come first. I could not be more excited about what we're doing."

Kirshbaum, vice president and publisher of Amazon Publishing in New York, said The 4-Hour Chef was "a watershed work, and an ideal way to launch our new publishing imprint in New York". But although Kirshbaum told the New York Times that "[Amazon's] success will only help the rest of publishing", mainstream publishers are nonetheless likely to be troubled by the latest show of dominance from the online player.

"Amazon's foray into book publishing ... is obviously a concern. They have very deep pockets and they are now a very, very powerful global competitor of ours," HarperCollins UK's chief executive Victoria Barnsley told Radio 4's The World at One yesterday. "They're this weird thing. We call them frenemies ... They are very, very powerful now – in fact they are getting close to being in a sort of a monopolistic situation. They control over 90% of physical online market in UK and over 70% of the ebook market so that's a very, very powerful position to be in. So yes, it is a concern."

Read the rest of the story here: Amazon strikes first 'major' publishing deal

Why Your Site Needs An About Page

I didn't have an about page until I read Joel Friedlander's article, Why Your Blog’s “About” Page Matters.

He writes:

A look at Google Analytics tells the story of why we need to pay attention to the “About” Page. On this blog, over the last 30 days there were 370 visits to my main “About” page. When I was working through a course in blogging I put a fair amount of work into getting this page to work.

I have a secondary “About” page, my “Hire Me” page that performs a similar function. It got 523 visits over the same period.

Multiplied out for the year, it looks like this:

“About Joel” page = 370 x 12 = 4,440 visits
“Hire Me” page = 523 x 12 = 6,276 visits

That’s over 10,000 people who will click over to my “About” pages in the next year. I want to use that opportunity to my advantage, and that’s something you can do, too.

Check your “About” page to see if it:

- Communicates in a personal way to readers
- Contains information readers of your site would fine relevant or interesting
- Shows more sides of you than you usually show in your articles
- Uses photographs or videos to make the information more personal
- Links to other assets of yours or to contact information.

Read the rest of Joel Friedlander's article here.

10 tips to improve your about page
It never rains, it pours. I just found another helpful article on making an "About" page, so I thought I would include it.

Almost as important as your website’s home page is the about page. This is your opportunity to build rapport with your guests — a chance to introduce yourself and to explain the aim of your website. Here are 10 tips that’ll have your own page in excellent shape.

1. Offer your name. It’s a blatantly obvious addition, yet so many about pages don’t get personal.
2. Include a photo. People like to see who they’re dealing with. A smile can work wonders, too. If there’s a team behind the website, include them all (even the cleaner plays an important role).
3. If it’s just you, write in the first-person. If someone asks what I do for a living, I don’t say, “David’s a graphic designer.” Use “I,” not “he/she.” It’ll help make you seem more personable.
4. Think about your visitor’s needs. Sure, you’re talking about yourself, but imagine you’re a potential client reading about you. What does the client get from contacting you?
5. Keep it current. Check the content every few weeks or every month to ensure it’s up-to-date. Perhaps you’ve moved home/office, or perhaps you offer a new product or service.
6. Show your location. By including a photo of your office, your town or city, you let people get that little bit closer, helping build rapport.
7. Short and sweet beats long and sour. Ask someone to have a look at your page. It shouldn’t take any longer than a minute to read, and the reader should learn something new about you.
8. Keep it professional. Smiley faces won’t help you clinch that £10,000 deal.
9. Experiment with video. Letting your visitors see and hear you can have a hugely beneficial effect when it comes to building trust online. (If you’re too self-conscious, why not start with an audio podcast?)
10. Add a call to action. Where should visitors go after they’ve read about you? Your design portfolio? Your contact page? Make it easy — include a link within the text.

One more thing, don’t take yourself too seriously.

Read the entire article here: 10 tips to improve your about page