By p.m.terrell
Your target market consists of your ideal reader: the one
that stays up all night turning the pages, writes glowing reviews, recommends
your books to friends, family and groups and eagerly awaits your next release.
In a recent edition of Southern
Writers Magazine, I provided tips to defining your ideal target market even
if you have no idea who they are. This process should be performed with every
title.
My first suspense, Kickback,
was published in 2002. I worked with the publisher’s marketing department for
several months to identify my ideal reader. This being my first suspense, I was
starting at Ground Zero. We identified bestselling authors within the same
genre, discovering the demographics through their reader reviews and social
media. I then participated in extensive book tours, which brought me face to
face with potential buyers, learning quickly which ones showed interest. I was
also a spokesperson for the Virginia Crime Stoppers Association, which brought
my titles in front of law enforcement officers. All told, my audience tended to
be conservative, religious (particularly evangelical), Baby Boomers (born
1946-1964) and older GenX (born 1965-1980).
Flash forward to 2012 when Vicki’s Key was released. My editor suggested I take the bedroom
scene further; as she described it, I had become “an expert at taking the
reader to the bedroom door”—now she wanted me to take them inside. After
several rewrites, I detailed much more than I ever had before. Little did I
know this one scene changed my demographics. My existing audience told me they wanted to be left at the door.
I also read declassified CIA documents for plot ideas (which
I highly recommend: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/home)
and I came upon materials on the remote viewer program, which continue within
intelligence and defense agencies, including the United States, Russia and
China. This was a character’s dream career, because I could take them around
the world, involving them in a variety of plots. So the main character in Vicki’s Key became a remote viewer. The
same demographic audience I had targeted for the previous ten years didn’t like
Vicki’s job; one reader told me it was science fiction.
Despite great reviews, sales slumped compared to my earlier titles—until
we adjusted the target market. It turned out that a liberal audience was more
likely to believe in the work of remote viewers; even though it was based in
fact, conservatives remained skeptical. Evangelicals were also less likely to
believe in the metaphysical, unless they were depicted as angels. Older
audiences did not like more graphic love scenes, though Millennials thought I could
have taken it even further. Rural audiences were less likely to enjoy quantum
physics (which remote viewing is based upon) or more graphic love scenes; urban
audiences were more open-minded. Once we adjusted the target market to urban
progressives, Millennials, and identified key words and phrases associated with
quantum physics and psychic phenomena, we connected with the right audience and
sales skyrocketed.
Lesson learned: with every book I have written since, I have
taken the time to identify the correct audience.
_____________________________________________________________
p.m.terrellis the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of more than 21
suspense, historical and non-fiction titles. She is also the founder of Book
'Em North Carolina (http://bookemnc.org) and The Novel Business (http://thenovelbusiness.com),
designed to help authors increase their sales. Social Links: Website: www.pmterrell.com
YouTube
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/terrellpm
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pmterrell/books/
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