Good evening, squiders! It’s been an interesting week, hasn’t it?
First things first, if you have Prolific Works, Hidden Worlds is part of a Hidden Magic promotion for the next month.
Secondly, it seems like there’s drama over at Nano HQ. It is a sad state of humanity that we can’t have nice things, and eventually someone will come along and ruin anything. Someone on one of my writing Discords has been tracking this (and trying to get people to deal with it) since the spring, and after months of inaction people have gone to the board, and the board is Not Happy.
I guess they’ve locked down the forums while they do a thorough investigation, which to be honest affects me not at all because the new site/forums are an unmitigated disaster and I only ever use them if I have to. Seriously, they are so user-unfriendly, and maybe if anything comes out of this we can at least get usable forums back.
But seriously, people, stop being awful.
Enough of that. Back to WriYe prompt catch-up.
October’s prompt is: Your ideal reader
Which is…not a complete thought. But anyway.
If you’re an indie or small press writer, you’ve probably come across this concept of an “ideal reader.” It’s a marketing idea. Basically, you picture a reader who would love your book. You create a whole personality for this person. And this fictional person is your ideal reader.
And then you use the concept of your ideal reader to figure out where said ideal readers hang out, so you can target your marketing to those spaces in the hopes of snagging the interest of said ideal readers and becoming a bestseller.
This is one of those concepts that goes around the writing community that drives me batty. I cannot wrap my mind around it. I’ve sat down to do it a few times, for the principle, and have gotten nowhere.
The examples are always like, Mary, 45, likes knitting and cozy mysteries, so you know, reach out to knitting communities and advertise where women in their mid-40s hang out.
But I always feel like I’m guessing when I try to make an ideal reader concept for myself. Fantasy is a genre that tends to be fairly wide in its readers, and they’re not particularly uniform, and aside from fantasy-specific spaces (which tend to be for specific series or movies or media) I can’t point to a particular place, online or off, where they’re going to be hanging out on a regular basis.
I’m sure I’m doing it wrong.
Anyway, I assume the prompt is “tell me about your ideal reader,” so, uh, likes fantasy, will buy my books?
Hm, yeah. Needs work.
Anyway, see you later in the week!
