A friend of mine asked if I had any articles about how to pick your target audience before you write. I can find gobs of stuff on finding an audience, but nothing really on choosing an audience. To me, it seems like content determines audience, but maybe I'm being myopic. Any help?
Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :
My cynical little voice pipes up with, "The only people who choose their audience are con artists."
If you search for "how to pick your target audience" there are all sorts of articles, which fall into two broad groups: 1) defining your market so you can tailor your advertising or website, or 2) multi-level marketing schemes selling their method of how to trawl for suckers. (Such as people who buy get-rich-quick books and MLM schemes.)
"Picking an audience" is probably fine if you intend to write content but haven't decided what content to write. (Such as if you feel an urge to blog but have no idea about what.) Find an underserved niche (audience) and write for it.
Not so fine if you already have your niche, genre, or whatever -- in that case, your audience finds you, and your control is limited to how well your marketing penetrates that audience.
So at least for us writers of fiction, I think you're dead on, and your friend is asking the wrong question (or at least phrased it wrong).