Considerations for your target audience

One of the best ways to ensure that you are able to have someone who reads your book is to, well, write for someone who is looking for your book! Your ideal reader, or your target audience, should be the person you are focusing your content, your writing, and your marketing on. But have you considered some basic elements of a great target audience?

Does your audience exist?

This is a mistake I have absolutely made in the past. You can craft this ideal person that would read your books, but when you take a step back you realize that this is not an audience that actually exists. It’s always good to look and see if there is actually demand for your stories outside of your social circle and in the wider market. Do the themes and genre and topics in your stories resonate with a lot of people? Are you telling a story that can be enjoyed by a lot of people, and specifically enough people that it could sustain your career?

Can your audience purchase your stories?

Simply put, your audience should be able to pay for your stories on their own. It is much easier to find a new reader if they do not have to get approval for the purchase from someone else. If you’re writing young adult, for instance, those kids may not have the ability to actually support you, no matter how much your story might resonate with them.

This isn’t to say you can’t write books for those younger audiences! It just means that you are going to have to be mindful that your marketing will be more about getting the parents and people in their lives with money to purchase your stories for them.

What does that audience actually expect?

This is a tricky question, but an important one to look at. When you have an audience that is seeking out your stories, it’s important to leave them satisfied and wanting more content when they are done. That means you need to fulfill their expectations, so it’s worth spending some time getting a good understanding of what they are actually looking for and, more importantly, why. That will give you the context to know if you want to try and subvert their expectations without making it a dissatisfying read.

How does that audience find out about new stories to check out?

This is so that you can let them know about your stories! If you know about your audience, and you know what they expect, then you should also know where they hang out and how they find new stories. Once you know where they are, then you can make sure you are also there, ready to help and possibly even give them a recommendation at just the right time!