Who are you writing for? If you don’t define your audience, it’s hard to actually know how to reach them.
I can guess what you’re thinking. This all sounds obvious, doesn’t it?
So here’s the catch. When I ask prospective book authors or bloggers about their audience, the answer I get most frequently is “everyone” or “anyone who has ever [fill in the blank]”.
I get it. When you’re passionate about a topic, passionate enough to actually write about it, you feel that absolutely everyone should–and will–share that passion. It’s like parents who assume that the whole world thinks their baby is the cutest thing ever. Their evaluation of their baby’s cuteness quotient may be perfectly accurate, but just like with your writing some people just won’t appreciate that and others just won’t care. And that’s fine, because your book and/or your blog don’t need to appeal to everyone. You just need to define your core audience and reach that specific group of people. If you can do that, the rest will follow.
I got that message loud and clear from a top-notch editor involved in a book I was co-authoring. “Narrow your target audience and write for them,” she said. “If your book catches on with those readers, the buzz will attract the others.” She was more right that she knew, since she could have also been talking about blogs.
Speaking of blogs, award-winning author and paid CreateSpace contributor Richard Ridley wrote a recent post titled Find Smaller Markets to Sell More Books in which he advises people to abandon a “big pond approach” in favor of a niche approach that allows them to make a big splash in a small pond. “What authors should do … is look for ways to make their target audience smaller. Find an element of your book that will resonate with a specific group of people and reach out to them,” he writes. “An example of a niche market is fly fishing enthusiasts. Let’s assume that you’ve written a murder mystery that features a protagonist who is a master fly fisherman. You’d be well-served to pursue fly fishing blogs, magazines, websites, clubs, etc. Let them know about your book. Offer them review copies. Let them know you’re available for an interview, personal appearance, or whatever else they need.”
It may seem that I’ve strayed from the topic since Ridley is talking about marketing, but unless you’re writing a personal journal, you have to think about who is going to read your book or your blog as you’re writing. Once you define your audience and write directly to them, the marketing gets that much easier.
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