Understanding your book's target audience

Who is your target audience?

It's a question that every self-publishing author who wants to sell books needs to grapple with at some point. Many authors like to think that everyone could like their book, while others just think the people who like it will end up finding it, and still others just try to avoid the question and focus on writing instead.

Identifying and finding your target audience is one of the biggest challenges facing any author. In a big publishing house, there is a marketing team with lots of experience to help you do this. But for those of us who self-publish, it's a challenge we have to face on our own. It's challenging enough for experienced marketers to do, but even more so for authors who are used to spending all their time making the book itself better, rather than finding and talking to readers.

But the fact is that you can do a lot of things right with marketing, from social media and blogging to book release parties and readings, but still not sell many books if you're not doing that marketing to the right target audience.

This week I'm going to dig deep into some creative ways to identify, find, and interact with your target audience.

Part II: Who is your target reader? I'll talk about figuring out your target audience, "reader personas," and how to use them to develop marketing strategies.

Part III: Where is your target reader? I'll talk about how to figure out where those readers spend time online and how you can connect.

Part IV: Why are your target readers reading? I'll talk about how you can make your marketing messaging and outreach more effective by understanding why your readers are reading books like yours in the first place.

Part V: How are your target readers reading? I'll talk about understanding different reading habits on different devices and how you can better market your book to specific reading behaviors.

Part VI: Making time to know your target readers: I'll talk about how you take these understandings and use them to help you spend your limited time for book marketing more effectively.

Image courtesy of Amit Chattopadhyay via flickr