On targeted audiences

Something authors stumble over

This is not a post on telling authors how to find their targeted audience. I am the last person to give advice on the matter. I can tell you quite clearly how NOT to find your audience. There’s a simple rule. Don’t follow just anybody.

But that doesn’t get you on the dart board, and frankly I’m still fixing feathers on my last ten years of misses. You know, the darts that landed in the field behind the house.

And sometimes that’s just what it takes. Trial and error. But I think finding your audience is a deeper search than just tossing your book out there and hoping it lands in someone’s hands who is willing to read it. I think finding people who want to read your stories is a matter of you knowing what you love about your story and why. What is it inside of you that created this masterpiece? And when you discover the answer to that question, you’ll discover what draws people to your book.

For me, I know there are thousands of people who won’t pick up a book written in the fantasy genre. They just won’t. They’re against it. I feel sorry for them because I’ve spent many wonderful days absorbed in fantasy literature. But that narrows my search somewhat.

Yet my stories have more to them than just being fantastical. I’m trying to tell the world something and I think there are people who not only are willing to listen, but who have the same thoughts and haven’t been able to express them.

I’m thinking of a reader who once picked up my young adult fantasy book and though he was by no means a young adult, the story hit home to him. Why? Because he identified with my main character, a boy whose father abandons him. When I wrote the book, traditional publishers didn’t want it because dad didn’t provide a good ‘role model’.

And if I had changed the dad’s character, I would be lying to the boys who needed to read the book.

It was the relationship between son and dad that inspired me to write the book. Why? Because I wanted my grandsons to know that they could be the man they wished their father had been. That they didn’t need to become a victim, but could grow from the trauma they found themselves in.

This reader saw that and sent me a letter thanking me. He said it healed some wounds he’d been carrying for a long time.

So my only advice in finding your audience is to let readers know what your book is REALLY about. Not the plot, or the trope, but the heart of the story.

Even if you just find your target audience one by one. Hope that helps.

Thanks for reading and following.

My current offering this month is my Kickstarter for The Keeper, and the heart of the story is about trusting each other, and when someone trusts you, you have a responsibility to do the best you can to come through for them. Even if you messed up before. Even if you don’t feel you’re trust worthy.

Try!

The outcome might surprise you!