While it would be wonderful for every single person to read and adore your book, it just isn’t reality. Just as different people prefer different foods, readers prefer different books. Finding the readers who will enjoy your specific book is imperative to successful marketing. The more in-tune you are to your audience, the more potential sales you will have. So let’s dive into how to find your target audience.
What Is a Target Audience?
Your target audience is a specific group of readers who will purchase and enjoy your book. Identifying who they are doesn’t mean other people can’t enjoy your book, it just gives you a starting point for your marketing efforts. Remember, your target audience includes who is making the book purchase, and it may not be the book’s reader. For example, adults buy children’s books but they are intended for kids as readers. As a children’s author, I have found success in marketing to grandparents because they like to purchase books for their grandkids. A successful marketing plan will address both audiences in this case, the purchaser and the reader.
Start With Your Book
Your book already has all the information you need to begin your marketing efforts. Examine the following:
- Genre and subgenre
- Age category (especially if it’s for kids)
- Themes and tone
- Setting
- Protagonist and antagonist
- Heat level for romance
- Overall content
Let’s take a look at an example to see how using the book’s content can shape marketing. I’ll be using the book WOVEN by Stephania Thompson for this exercise.
- Genre and subgenre: Contemporary romantic suspense
- Age category: Adult/18+
- Themes and tone: Renovating theme, dramatic but fun tone
- Setting: Baltimore
- Protagonist and antagonist: David, Josh, Kate (heroes) and Josh’s Dad (villain)
- Heat level for romance: Closed door/Lower heat
- Overall content: Love triangle
For WOVEN, we identified our target audience by analyzing the book’s content. Females read romance more heavily than males, so it is more productive to market to them. (Remember, it doesn’t mean males can’t or won’t enjoy the book, just that we will be more likely to get sales if we target women.) Since the setting is in the city of Baltimore, we targeted women in that area who like romantic suspense and had success with our sales.
Find Your Comparable Readers
We live in a wonderful age where doing research for your book is just a few clicks away. No more visiting stores and libraries and pulling a ton of books off the shelves to get the information you need. All you have to do is hop on Amazon’s or GoodReads’s websites. Search for books similar to yours and start a list. The big question: Who is reading those books? Read the reviews and see what kinds of people enjoyed those stories. Researching comps not only shows you who your audience is, it is also useful for cover conventions, keywords, categories, and marketing approaches that work.
Use this information as well as your book’s details to create a reader profile. Consider:
- Gender
- Age
- Interests
- Location
- Reading habits
- Preferred format (ebook, paperback, hardback, audio)
Gather as much info as you can in your research and find specifics whenever possible. The more precise you can be with your targeting, the more likely a purchase is to happen.
Learn Where Those Readers Are
After you’ve narrowed down who you’re targeting, the next step is to figure out where those readers are. And more importantly, where they purchase books from. Do readers in your genre join Facebook groups? Follow reviewers on Instagram or TikTok? Are they looking at reviews on GoodReads? What about any podcasts they may listen to? Wherever your readers are, that’s where you need to be! You can pay for ads on platforms they visit or be a guest on podcasts they listen to. If they are all about getting ebooks on their Kindle, be sure to run Amazon ads. Investing your time in figuring out where your readers hang out will definitely be worth the payout.
Turn What You’ve Learned Into a Marketing Plan
Now that you know about your book, your readers, and where they are, use this information to create a marketing plan. The question is not, “How do I market my book?” but rather “How do I get my book in front of people who already love books like mine?” Knowing your target audience will impact the look of your book (cover and formatting), your blurb, keywords, social media strategy, advertising, events, and which reviewers you approach. Spend some time creating an actionable plan where each task gets your book in front of your target audience.
While book marketing isn’t always easy, targeting your audience helps give you direction and makes your efforts more intentional rather than random. It isn’t about deciding who is allowed to read your book; it’s about figuring out who is most likely to say, “This book is for me.” Those are the people you want to connect with, the people who are most likely to make the purchase. Afterall, isn’t the goal of your writing to connect with the audience? What better way than figuring out exactly who they are and delivering exactly what they want!
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