How to Find Your Book’s Target Audience (And Write for That Audience)
You know why you’re writing your book, but do you know why someone else would read it? More importantly, do you know who would read it? How do you define your book’s target audience?
Why would someone choose your book over the million other options they have?
Your writing style will rely heavily on your target audience. Who are you writing this book for? Picture the ideal person who will be flipping through your pages. Is it the same person who would be sitting in the crowd if you were giving a keynote? Is your target audience for the book and for your business the same?
It’s important to know who you’re speaking to. Great information written for the wrong crowd will not take your message very far.
Identify the Target Audience for Your Book
The best way to clearly define your target reader is to put together an avatar. Build a character as if you were going to write a fiction novel.
Give them a full name, first and last. Choose their birthdate, gender, height, weight, and hair color. Are they married? Do they have children? What is their occupation? Salary? What do they drive? Where do they live? What are their hobbies?
Want to write a book in 2022?
Go deep. Develop this person and then get to know them inside and out. Know what they enjoy and what they don’t enjoy. Know what they would want to read, why they would want to read it, and the time of day they enjoy reading the most.
Also, focus on what they aren’t. What do they dislike? What nuances would make them shut the book? These are things you want to ensure you avoid.
Demographics versus Psychographics
Age, gender, where they live, what they do for a living—these are all demographics. The demographics are what sit on the surface. They are easy to spot, which makes it easier to categorize potential readers.
Demographics will be the first you turn to since they are the simplest and quickest to put together. There’s nothing wrong with that. Build out the physical description to give yourself a starting point. Then, you can get into psychographics.
It’s the psychographics of your target reader that begin to narrow them down and to place them into the niche you’re looking to attract.
What interests your target reader? Do they live by certain values? What defines them and their personality? What sort of information are they looking to consume? These are the psychographics that will help you visualize your target reader.
Building Your Target Avatar
When you first started your business and built a business plan, you identified your target market. You placed the demographics—and possibly psychographics—into a person, and you called them your target market.
From there, you built your buyer persona. You created an avatar—a fictional representation of someone who would be a great consumer of your product or partner to your brand. You gave that person a name, a birth date, and a job. Then, you determined whether or not they were in a relationship, had kids, what their salary was, and what their future plans included.
When you created your buyer persona, you created a person you wanted to find in real life, because you knew you had built a product for them.
Think of your target avatar as your reader persona. They are the fictional person you can create that would greatly benefit from reading your book.
Target Avatar Example
Take a look at the example below, taken from a client whose book is written for retirees looking for investment paths to maintain an income in retirement:
Tom White is an engineer on the brink of retirement. After forty-two long years working in the industry, bouncing from company to company and working his way up the corporate ladder, he has been able to create a nice life for his family. His children are out of the house and as his retirement date approaches, he and his wife prepare for an empty nest.
But they are also preparing for a retirement account that will, for the first time, begin to move backward. For his entire career, Tom has contributed to his retirement funds to set himself up for a joyous retirement but now he’s worried. He wants security.
Can you picture Tom White? Does he seem like a real person to you, on the brink of facing real trouble?
This is how you want to build out each of your target avatars—make them real and create a problem that needs to be solved.
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Audiences
Your book can’t be targeted toward everybody. Even if it can help a general audience, it can’t be written with a general population in mind. You need to write it as if you are speaking to your primary audience member.
Write your book and have it published to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more…
Is your book about proper nutrition and fitness? That can be for everyone, but you have to choose a primary audience member. Women between the ages of 21 and 35, for example. Define your primary audience member, and as you write, envision yourself writing a book for that person specifically.
Your secondary and tertiary audiences are those who would understand the book if they read it, but who the book isn’t specifically written for. If you’re writing a nutrition and fitness book for a woman between the ages of 21 and 35, your secondary audience member might be her mom. She is closer to the age of 55 or 60, but some of the advice you are sharing can make a positive impact in her life as well.
The idea of selecting your target audience isn’t news to you. You have done this with your own product or business, but it must be pointed out here before you begin writing. If you write an entire manuscript, send it to an editor, and they flood your document with red text because they cannot understand who it is you’re writing the book for, you’re going to start working backward.
Writing A Book for Your Target Audience Member
With your target audience member defined, writing becomes easier. All you need to do now is focus on relaying your information to the target audience member.
Write it on the page as if this person was sitting directly across from you. Speak to them. Engage with them. If you do, your book will create such an impact that they will have no other choice but to share it with others they know.
Writing a book is only possible if you trade time or money. If your time is precious but you still want to write and publish a book, our team can help.