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Thread: Who is your target audience?

  1. #1
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    Who is your target audience?

    When I was a young musician and writer I didnt think about an audience and I did whatever entertained me, first. I never was a people pleaser, a yes man or a pushover, that type of person that says, "What do you want me to make?! What do you think I should play?!" I did watever I wanted to do the way I wanted to do it. I didn't have a target audience. I thought man if enough people like my stuff as much as I do I can make some money at this.

    When I became smarter and more talented and practiced and knowledgeable I started to realize that I needed to get into genre writing if I wanted to develop my craft or be stuck in freelance yes man hell. So I stuck to subject matter related to what I read and what movies I watch and my personal interests.

    I suppose my target audience would have been people much like myself that I could relate to in life. I never was one of those writers with an agenda pretending to be something they're not in order to secretly target a specialized audience to influence them in some way. I like science fiction and used to like horror, I like action and war and all that so thats what I stick to.

    Unlike many authors I don't try to appeal to other age groups or ethnic groups either. I stay in my comfort zone when writing. I might occasionally use a child or an elderly person in my stories but my target audience is my own age group and lifestyle group.

    I can't imagine being that middle aged man writing childrens stories, you know how weird that sounds? Best leave the childrens stories to women, they're naturals at it. I'm not a teacher either, not much of a teaching streak in me so, childrens stories that teach children to read and with some sort of moral lesson? Not gonna happen. No interest at all in doing that sort of thing.

    Same thing with historical fiction that a lot of younger writers see as a gold mine these days. They figured out just target a large elderly group and write about huge events that they remember and play on their nostalgia. Like WW2, Elvis Presley, JFK and the summer of love. A lot of the time these historical fictions read disgenuine and contrived. I would say those authors are ripping off the elderly. Let the real deal tell the story is what I say.

    So I guess that right now my target audience would be 24-50 years old, interested in action and sci-fi and war stories and just wants to be entertained without too much demand on them. Moviegoers and casual readers. I don't like to require my readers to emotionally invest themselves too deeply or be riddled so hard it drains their brain power. Perhaps someday I will get good at what I'm trying to do and actually meet that goal.
    Last edited by Secret III; 08-14-2019 at 01:06 AM.

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    Well, if you want to get published, Secret, the bad news is that your target audience is your potential publisher. The good news is that he's not that hard to figure out. He wants a money-making franchise that you will be expected to expand regularly and on his terms. If he doesn't think your the right type for that, then don't take it personally. In the meantime, get ready to go down on your hands and knees and make your pitch. Sorry, but that's the way it works. Good luck.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    Well, if you want to get published, Secret, the bad news is that your target audience is your potential publisher. The good news is that he's not that hard to figure out. He wants a money-making franchise that you will be expected to expand regularly and on his terms. If he doesn't think your the right type for that, then don't take it personally. In the meantime, get ready to go down on your hands and knees and make your pitch. Sorry, but that's the way it works. Good luck.
    I'm not a series writer. The two books I wrote were one-off stand alone novels. I know what you're talking about though. When I was a kid 90% of full length novels were one-off stand alones. Nowadays 90% of full length novels are unimaginative mediocre sequels.

    Who is your target audience, Pompey Bum?

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    Primarily, the younger generation of my family and their children (one of whom has already turned up). At the moment, I am writing an account of my great great grandfather's cavalry regiment/company in the Civil War, based on deep data primary research (soldier by soldier where I can). That I can self publish and sell to members of the internet genealogy community. There is nothing more boring than reading someone else's family history, but since I'm researching everyone I can, it's just a matter of finding the descendants--and I already know quite a few online. It won't make money, I know, but I'm not doing it to make money. It's really for my family.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    Primarily, the younger generation of my family and their children (one of whom has already turned up). At the moment, I am writing an account of my great great grandfather's cavalry regiment/company in the Civil War, based on deep data primary research (soldier by soldier where I can). That I can self publish and sell to members of the internet genealogy community. There is nothing more boring than reading someone else's family history, but since I'm researching everyone I can, it's just a matter of finding the descendants--and I already know quite a few online. It won't make money, I know, but I'm not doing it to make money. It's really for my family.
    That's a great idea. Most of my family tree and heirarchy is forgotten before 1850 but we generally know where members before then came from. On my stepfathers side they have a tome of a book tracing their Norwegian roots all the way back to the 1600s. Professionally crafted with a hard cover I never saw anything like it before or since.

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    replicated post
    Last edited by Secret III; 08-15-2019 at 11:26 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Secret III View Post
    That's a great idea. Most of my family tree and heirarchy is forgotten before 1850 but we generally know where members before then came from. On my stepfathers side they have a tome of a book tracing their Norwegian roots all the way back to the 1600s. Professionally crafted with a hard cover I never saw anything like it before or since.
    Thanks. You'd be shocked by how much is still retrievable using deep data hauls. The 1600s is good, but you could probably go back further and even find out about your biological father's line if you wanted to. When I started, all I knew was that my great grandfather ran a saloon in South Dakota and his father fought for Iowa in the Civil War. I can now trace descents for 20 generations (over 600 years) from the earliest ancestors I'm sure of to my family's newest baby. And I'm hyper-skeptical. There are folks who will tell you anything you want to hear about your ancestry. You have to learn to sniff 'em out and say no (get burned once or twice and you will). But if I told you some of the things I've been able to document, you'd think I was a liar. Anyways, don't think your family's story is gone. It's mostly still there if you know where to look.

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