BOOK CHAPTER

#4. 10 Minute Author — Plan

Task 2: Know your ideal reader

PART 1: PLAN

Your Audience and Ideal Reader

Have you considered who you’re writing your book for? Perhaps you are writing it for yourself and only yourself and if this is the case, this section does not matter so much for you. But if you’re writing your book for others, to influence, to impact, and to inspire, then it is not enough to write a book and hope it finds the market. Know your market and then write the book they need to read. There is a caveat to this: You must love it, you must feel it, and you must want it. Write for your audience but also, write for your soul.

Write for your audience but also, write for your soul.

Begin to understand and know your audience by first recognizing the demographics in which they reside. A demographic is a general group of people; for example, women aged 25 to 30 are a demographic. For your particular target audience, consider the demographics into which they fall concerning age, location, and gender, and you may wish to consider things like career, income, marital status, etc. Know their demographics but be aware that audience demographics are too broad to truly know your ideal reader; however, it is the first step to knowing your one ideal reader.

Honing in from your large target audience to the ideal reader is about honing in on that one person. You should know that one person like you know yourself — there is a good chance it IS yourself a few years ago. It is no longer just about demographics, now it is about knowing your ideal reader’s name, their likes, their dislikes, their job and how they feel about that job, their family situation, even the clothes they wear, and where they hang out. Having one ideal reader and knowing them fully will allow you to write and market with absolute clarity.

To explore who your ideal reader is, do this exercise:

Let’s assume you have already written your book. Imagine you have just ONE COPY of your book and imagine that you must give that one copy to only one person and therefore you wish to give it to the one person whose life you will impact the most.

- Who is that person? - What is their name? - What do they do? - What do they like? - How would you describe their personality? - Where will you find them during the day? - What do they wear? - What is their passion? - What are their secrets? - What are their fears? - Who do they love? - What else do you know about them?

Now that you know who your ideal reader is, let’s flip it around and look at your book from their point of view. Imagine your ideal reader picking up your book for the first time.

• What does your book look like?
• What appeals to them?
• Why did they pick it up?
• How big is your book?
• What does the spine look like?
• What’s on the back?
• What’s on the front?
• What font is used inside?
• How big is the text?
• What else can you think of, or more importantly, what else does your ideal reader notice?

The next thing to consider is how to get your book in front of that one person. Remember that although we’re only marketing to one person, they are simply a representation of the energetic resonance of the readers your book will appeal to so by marketing to your one ideal reader, you will reach so many more. Advertise to them only, advertise to that one ideal reader. You already know where they hang out and what they do, so get your book into those locations. You can also seek out those similar to your ideal reader to be beta readers and to write reviews for you.

Knowing your audience is not just about having a general idea of the type of person you want to read your book. It’s more than just targeting a particular demographic. The more you know, the deeper you know, your one ideal reader, that one person whose world your book will change, the greater your reach will be. Do not market to 10 million people and hope one million read your book. Market to one person, aim to CHANGE ONE PERSON’S LIFE and your reach will be astounding.

YOUR TASK: Write a profile for your Ideal Reader

Copyright © 2020 Writer’s World

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by Australian copyright law.

This book was written a few years ago and published in 2020; however, since then, I have closed the program and website that it refers to so, I need to update it. What better way than to share it on here? I’ll be sharing a chapter (or part of a chapter) every week but if you can’t wait for the updated version to dribble out to you, you can access the full original copy on Amazon now.