I read some advice today that made sense to me. I took the advice and it made even more sense.
We are routinely told to decide who is our audience. Equally routinely, I reply that I don't know who my audience is, that my audience is anyone and everyone, or that it bloody doesn't matter. These statements are all true. They are also unproductive.
The advice was this: use yourself as the audience. It sounds silly, certainly too narrow, but once I thought of it as a starting point, I saw the value. Because one reason I come back with the smart-guy responses is that I did not know where to start in defining the audience. So I got this.
The ideal reader for Goblins at the Gates is age 35 and up, either gender, who enjoys novels with rich detail and interesting characters. The ideal reader is someone who enjoys historical dramas, low fantasy, and military adventure along the lines of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire and Harry Turtledove’s The Misplaced Legion or How Few Remain.
I actually began with between 35 and 65, and male only. I present this later version to show that once you have a starting point, it becomes easy to expand and change the definition.
Notice that the definition is specific to the book, includes age and gender, though it could also include things like level of education, political or religious affiliation, and so on, depending on the book (more applicable to non-fiction). It also includes some stabs at genre and some "you may also like" phrasing.
I already had the comparison works, so that was easy. I had to think about the genres, because "alternate historical fantasy" is simply not very descriptive. I had to think about the kinds of books I tend to read and go from there.
The wording is not at all complete. I'll throw out "the ideal reader" phrase, will think more about word choice in the genres, and might even add another sentence. The point is, by starting with me I was able to break the logjam on how to think about this. It's ridiculously obvious, isn't it? Of course I enjoy the book I wrote, that's why I wrote it. Presumably there are other humans on this planet who are somewhat like me.
So, you know, at the end of the day, it really is all about me.
We are routinely told to decide who is our audience. Equally routinely, I reply that I don't know who my audience is, that my audience is anyone and everyone, or that it bloody doesn't matter. These statements are all true. They are also unproductive.
The advice was this: use yourself as the audience. It sounds silly, certainly too narrow, but once I thought of it as a starting point, I saw the value. Because one reason I come back with the smart-guy responses is that I did not know where to start in defining the audience. So I got this.
The ideal reader for Goblins at the Gates is age 35 and up, either gender, who enjoys novels with rich detail and interesting characters. The ideal reader is someone who enjoys historical dramas, low fantasy, and military adventure along the lines of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire and Harry Turtledove’s The Misplaced Legion or How Few Remain.
I actually began with between 35 and 65, and male only. I present this later version to show that once you have a starting point, it becomes easy to expand and change the definition.
Notice that the definition is specific to the book, includes age and gender, though it could also include things like level of education, political or religious affiliation, and so on, depending on the book (more applicable to non-fiction). It also includes some stabs at genre and some "you may also like" phrasing.
I already had the comparison works, so that was easy. I had to think about the genres, because "alternate historical fantasy" is simply not very descriptive. I had to think about the kinds of books I tend to read and go from there.
The wording is not at all complete. I'll throw out "the ideal reader" phrase, will think more about word choice in the genres, and might even add another sentence. The point is, by starting with me I was able to break the logjam on how to think about this. It's ridiculously obvious, isn't it? Of course I enjoy the book I wrote, that's why I wrote it. Presumably there are other humans on this planet who are somewhat like me.
So, you know, at the end of the day, it really is all about me.