Finding Your Audience
Discover Your World of Readers and Put Them to Work for You
Who are you writing for? Is that something you think about? And if not, do you want to? Even if you already know who your audience is, what they want, and where they are, today’s article still has some thoughts for you. If you don’t know who your audience is, or you haven’t taken any time yet to look into it, then I especially want to talk to you today.
Yes, all three of you:
Mr. I don’t want to think about my audience because I don’t want them to influence my writing;
Ms. I don’t need to think about my audience because my audience is everyone; and
Mx. I don’t need to take audience into account because my project doesn’t have one;
I’m talking to you.
Writing With Purity
I’ve heard this sentiment a lot of times from a lot of people (including, sometimes, myself): I don’t want my writing to be influenced by audience expectations or feedback because then it won’t be authentic. I just want to write what I have in my brain or my heart, and the audience it’s meant for will find it when I’m ready to share.
I’m just going to throw a radical idea out here: There is no purity test you have to pass to write incredible content.
If your writing can benefit from any of the following, that does not mean that it wasn’t good to begin with.
Researching your comparables (comps)
Getting a beta read or six
Hiring a pro for a manuscript evaluation
Collaborating with a writing coach or critique group
Any writing, no matter how skilled and inspired the author, can benefit from all of the above. You might be thinking, “Well if my writing is good I don’t need all of those folks to get involved. Are we writing books by committee now?”
Books have always been written by committee.
Shakespeare? Edited by about 30 different people over the centuries, starting with the King’s Men who edited the First Folio in 1623. The father of modern English literature needed editors. Mary Shelley workshopped Frankenstein with her husband and Byron during the summer of 1816. I still credit her with inventing the science fiction genre but she didn’t do it in total influence vacuum. Murasaki Shikibu wrote the Genji Monogatari chapter by chapter, passing each one around to her peers while she worked on the next. There’s no way to know for sure whether she incorporated feedback as she went, but thanks to modern-day computer analysis we know that there are significant style changes from chapter to chapter. Murasaki was either iterating off of feedback or the sum total was the collaborative effort of several writers. Genji is the first novel of all time.
All this to say, there has never been a time in the history of the novel in which writers were not collaborating to write their books. So if you’re not interested in considering your audience because you think great writers don’t have to—consider reconsidering.
The Whole Wide World
Maybe you don’t think you need to seek out your audience because whatever you’re writing is so good, so unique, and so original that there’s no way it won’t set the world on fire when you put it out there. Everyone is going to want what you’re cooking, so why bother to consider a specific group?
First, there’s an excellent chance that your idea isn’t as unique as you think. I’m not sure there are any new ideas for stories. Some people say there are only seven plots in the whole universe of storytelling and we’re all just iterating on those. I’m not sure I believe that but I’m also not sure I don’t. I’ll give it some thought and research and then dedicate a future article to the premise—promise.
Second, the literary zeitgeist is changing all the time. Whatever is making waves and selling like hotcakes right now is going to be passé by the time your work is published. If you go with a traditional publisher, count on two or three years from when you type “the end” to when your book hits the shelf. If you self-publish, you can dump your manuscript into an e-book format and have it on sale by the end of the day. But you’ll have a long road ahead of you to get anyone to read it. Even if you make it free of cost, even if you make it lending-enabled and put it on Kindle Unlimited, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time and money promoting.
A couple times in a generation, somebody comes out with the book that it feels like everybody has read or at least knows about. Every now and then someone writes a Valley of the Dolls or a Gone With the Wind or a Jonathan Livingston Seagull. That could be you. I’m not saying it’s not you. I hope it is you.
Even if that’s your book and it has the potential to set the world on fire, you’ve got to light the match and toss it into the haystack. Even if you’re sure your idea is evergreen, you’ll be better positioned to succeed if you’ve taken the time to assess the core elements of your work, figure out who they appeal to, and do a little reconnaissance to understand how to put your words under their gaze. You’ve got to get someone to read it before they can start spreading the word.
An Audience of One
Finally, there’s the folks who are really just writing for themselves. A friend of mine writes a blog about addiction recovery. They write it for themself to chronicle their personal journey and keep their recovery on track. It’s intensely personal material and they have no interest in catering to anyone else’s thoughts or wishes for what it should include. That said, even though they don’t advertise or promote their writing, folks now and then wander in from around the web and engage with the blog, leaving likes and comments. Even if you’re writing just for yourself, there are others out there who want to read your work or could benefit from reading it.
If you’re journaling or writing something intensely personal, then you may not want to ever go public with it—and that’s fine. Don’t let anyone pressure you into sharing something that’s just for you. However, if the reason you’re writing just for yourself is because you think there’s no audience for what you have besides you—I can pretty much guarantee that’s not true. There’s an audience for everything. No matter how niche your subject, whatever you create probably has (as Kevin Kelly puts it) at least 1,000 true fans.
Wrapping up this section, then, I say to all three of you:
You have an audience. The people who want your work are out there. They exist. And:
That audience can help improve your work and help you find the avenue for sharing it with the wider world. And:
Your audience won’t find you. They’re not looking for you. You have to find them.
Find Those Fans
Who are they? And where do you find them? Think about the product you’re creating and all the people it might appeal to. There are probably several categories of people who would be interested. Start with people who are similar to you in important ways. For instance, if you’re writing a business book you might be looking for:
People in your career or with the same job title as you
People with the same educational background as you
People who have been helped by the same books that have helped you
Once you’ve come up with all the groups of people like you that you can think of, you can iterate on those groups and find more people. Here are some iterations off the first bullet above:
People who want to get into the career field or job that you’re in
People in adjacent careers (eg, if you’re a doctor then adjacent careers might include nursing, medical practice management, or pharmaceutical research)
People who provide services to your profession (vendors) or to whom your profession provides services (clients)
For a fiction project like a novel or a book of poems, you might start with a list of people who are similar to you in a different set of important ways, like:
People who read a certain genre of fiction or type of writing
People who enjoy writing that genre or type of material
People who want to participate in book clubs
The iteration process is the same, though the groups you end up with will be wildly different. Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget the audience of people who will read what you write just because you’re you. Your friends and family. And your friends’ families. And your family’s friends. And so on.
That’s who they are. Where do they live? I don’t mean their home—put the boombox away John Cusack. I mean where they hang out on the web, where they go to get and give book recommendations, and where they look for content. Based on the criteria above you can start brainstorming places to find these folks and, ideally, communicate with them.
Some places they may be lurking:
Social media; look for them in Twitter hashtags, Facebook groups, and LinkedIn comment discussions
Relevant Slack channels or public Discord servers
Professional organizations for people in your field or area of expertise
In the forums of industry publications
Internet forums on the topic you’re writing about or for lovers of the fiction genre you’re writing in
Now you know who the audience is and you’ve got a lead on where to find them. They’re in your sights. What can they do for you?
Put Them to Work
Let’s look at how you can take that potential readership and get them working for you. Here are some things they can help you with:
Understanding how to overcome a hurdle in your plotting or writing
Finding a creative partner or writing buddy to keep you motivated
Discovering the agent who would love to represent your work
Choosing the right publishing path for the type of project you have
Learning how and where to promote your finished product
“Promoting my finished product? But won’t my publisher handle all that?” Haha! No! You, the author, are expected to come to the table with your homework complete. A traditional publishing house will provide some level of marketing support (the level of support varies widely) in the form of staff and a budget, but they’ll be looking to you for a lot of the information they need to market the book.
The first thing your readers will do for you is introduce you to other stuff they love. Other books like the ones you love and the one you’re writing, other authors you never knew about, communities talking about these things, and events showcasing or highlighting them.
For instance, I like comics. When I talk to others who like comics, I learn about new ones. I learn about comic conventions or expos that cater to exactly the kind of comics I like. I get to learn about and sometimes meet the people who make those comics—and through them I meet even more people to talk comics with and the process starts over. This is fun for me but without even trying I pick up on industry trends, I learn about independent publishers who sign new talent—I mean, I’m not even in the comics business and the next thing I know I’m watching a panel on contracts that is all kinds of relevant to the stuff I am in the business of.
Next, among them you may come across a writing pal who is working on something similar to your project. Your writing pals don’t all have to be into the same stuff as you. I happened into a critique group who are all working on children’s picture books while I’m working on long-form narrative nonfiction. I didn’t know if it would be a match but it turned out to be a great place to get and give ideas and feedback. You will get a different kind of assistance from people working on projects like yours versus people working on dissimilar projects. Both kinds of assistance are invaluable if you can get them.
As you begin to see commonalities among your groups of potential readers, you’ll learn some things about the business side of the process as well—even if they’re not industry people. For instance, what front cover designs do they rave about? Where do they go to get their books? Do they prefer to purchase or use libraries? Are they just as likely to buy—or more likely to buy—a self-published book as they are to buy a book from a major publisher? Is price point more important to them than design and production values? What kind of promotions get them excited?
And from that information you can pick out specifics such as: What illustrator or designer is producing the covers that everyone is so excited about? If the books your readers like are self-published, how did the readership find or discover them? Do they like Goodreads better than Litsy? What about BookSniffer? If the books are coming out of a major house or houses, which one(s)? What editors are signing them? Which agents represent the authors?
All this information will help you make sure that your book is ready to knock the readers’ socks off; find the helpers, professionals, or skills that you need to get it published; and know exactly where to concentrate your marketing efforts to get it in front of the largest possible audience.
TL;DR: Find them, know them, love them—your audience will love you back if you give them the opportunity.
Wondering how to build that solid list of realistic comps? Scratching your head about what kind of person would make a good beta reader for your project? What’s a manuscript evaluation and how do you get one? I mentioned a bunch of stuff in this article that might be unfamiliar. Not to worry! Those topics are in the Shelf Life editorial calendar and they’ll be coming your way soon. Meanwhile, this coming Tuesday, I’m looking forward to telling you one of my all-time favorite stories from the publishing trenches. I call it: The Four-Maggie Problem. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss out.
PS—Ever wanted to try something like NaNoWriMo but felt your project wasn’t a good fit? Wishing you could participate in a writing community challenge in November but not up for the pressure of NaNoWriMo Official? The Shelf Life Discord is hosting a NaNo Club for anyone who wants to participate in any capacity, for any type of writing project. Want to write poems? Songs? Blog posts? Short stories? A non-novel long-form book? Choose your project and then set your own goals, mile markers, and schedule. We would love to have you.
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