Today we’ll talk about Target Audience: what it is, why it matters, how to figure out who your target audience is, and how to find those people!
Knowing your target audience is crucial to your book’s life. Let me present a few scenarios to you. Maybe you’ve experienced one of them as a reader, or perhaps you or an author you know has experienced this:
Scenario #1: you’re browsing the bookstore, checking out the bestsellers table. A beautiful cover catches your eye, so you decide to buy the book and give it a try! You rush back home, eager to dive right in. You brew a cup of coffee, grab your coziest blanket, and plop down on the couch. It’s time to fall into a new world! Only, 100 pages in you realize, “I’m bored out of my mind. This book sucks!” If you’re anything like me, this is about the time you take to Goodreads or Instagram and start looking at what other people are saying about the book.
To your dismay, the majority of people are raving about it! “I love the relationship between the main character and the dragon!” “This story had me on my toes from page 1!” “If every book were like this I’d be a happy little reader!”
You set your phone down, wondering what in the name of all things holy is wrong with the world. You give the book 2 more chapters, and still nothing. You hate the main character. The dragon is dumb. Finally, you close the book and place it on your shelf where it will forever remain, collecting dust.
You, my friend, just discovered that you are not the target audience (also known as ideal reader) for this book.
Scenario #2: you’re a new author, freshly debuted. It’s a fiction novel, a thriller, but you’re positive that there is something in the story for every kind of reader. There’s a romantic subplot, a kooky sidekick, an awesome main character, and a twist that’ll knock the socks off even the most clever reader. You want as many eyes on your book as possible. It needs to be out there, in the world! After all, you’ve worked so hard! You’re sure everyone is going to love it. So what do you do? You market it to everyone! Teenagers, adults, and the elderly. You recommend it to all your Facebook friends and even people in line behind you at the grocery store. You’re working hard to spread the word. And finally, the moment of truth: your first review! You excitedly click on it, only to read “one star. The story dragged.”
You’re crushed. Even when the five-star reviews start flowing in, the ones that stick out the most are the one-stars. The people who say, “I don’t usually read this genre, one star.”
What happened? Where did you go wrong? You, my friend, did not focus on your Target Audience.
There is a famous quote from actor and comedian, Ricky Gervais, that says “If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.”
That saying is so important when it comes to writing and marketing your book. Not everyone is going to like it, and that’s okay! In fact, that’s good. You don’t want everyone to like it. It’s better to have a few people LOVE it instead of everyone who kind of likes it.
Target Audience: What is it?
A target audience is the group of people that you believe will love your book. It’s the people you are writing for. For some authors, that group is teenage girls who feel lost in their world. For others, it’s stay-at-home moms who need an escape. Ideally, the more specific you make your target audience, the better.
Famous authors spanning the last several decades would often have one specific person in mind while they wrote. That person was their target audience. Stephen King says, in his book On Writing, that he writes for his wife, Tabby. His goal is to make her scared or to make her laugh. He writes things that he thinks she will like. J.R.R. Tolkien said that he wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy for his son. Having a specific person in mind can help you zero in on what is important in your story.
Target Audience: Why it matters?
Why does it matter to have a target audience in mind? What’s the big deal, can’t you just write what you want to write? In a way, yes. Knowing your target audience will help with marketing. Like scenario #2, you don’t want to fall into the trap of marketing to everyone. That is a great way to get your ego hurt. Knowing your target audience will give you the language you need to use when it comes to marketing. It’ll inform your decisions about what kind of graphics to use, what language to use when talking about your book, and which tropes to highlight to readers. Knowing your target audience can take the overwhelming task of marketing and niche it down to something a little more manageable. It’ll also help you mentally prepare for negative comments. You can let a comment slide off your back if you understand that the person wasn’t your ideal reader.
Target Audience: How to determine yours
The best way to determine who is your target audience is by choosing one real-life person and writing to them. It could be your best friend, another author you admire, or even the younger version of you. But having someone specific and real in mind will help you write better — and eventually market better! If you have that person in mind, you can then ask yourself questions like, “Would so-and-so understand this?” or “Would this be shocking to so-and-so?”
It might sound silly, but my target audience was my mom. I grew up reading thriller books with my mom and we often had similar tastes in stories. So when I set out to write my book, I often thought of her and if what I was writing aligned with the books with both enjoyed while I was growing up. Keeping her in the back of my mind informed the way I hit certain story beats or revealed different information in the book.
Before you sit down to write today, take a moment to yourself. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Ask yourself, who am I writing for? Take a few more deep breaths and let the answer come to you. Write their name down on a sticky note and place it somewhere you can see while writing. Then, get to work! Happy writing!
Need help bringing your book to life? Meraki Press exists to serve first-time authors as they grow and launch their passion projects!
We offer complete packages or a la carte services for every step of drafting to publishing!
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