Your biography is your name card. Imagine that someone sends you a hand-written, roughly cropped, wrinkled name card. What will you think of this person? If he didn't take care of his name card, he either doesn't respect himself, or doesn't respect YOU - a person who deserves to take only decent material in his hands.

If you don't know your strong sides that should be written out in your biography, you don't know yourself. And why would an organizer want someone who doesn't know his own strengths?

Dozens of awards don't mean you're an interesting musician. And reading the list of these awards is one of the most boring things for a concert organizer to do. Awards are not what makes a great biography. Spoken from experience of my own, and of people from the music community.

It's a big mistake to think that "the outer package" is something unworthy of a serious musician. In case of a biography, it's what shows up on the surface that matters. The "package" can't get you a call-back, but it can open the doors to concerts and festivals. And in fact, that's exactly what we need a biography for –giving us access to the stage, scholarships, agents, and organizations.

It's also wrong to believe that if you didn't take part in competitions, you have nothing to write about. Five streams of students will confirm that we have made a real feast out of many average biographies. As a literature course expert, I practice this professionally.