Are you in the middle of writing your book? Then I have a question for you. Have you started thinking about who you are writing for?

If you have,  you are on the right track. A lot of authors think about their readers only after their book is published, when it is time to promote their book. But it is highly important for you to start thinking about your audience now and get an understanding of their preferences to see if you can incorporate some best practices in your book.

Let me help you get started. Your primary target audience does not include all the readers who could possibly pick up your book. Your primary target audience is a very refined list of people who are most likely to pick up your book when they see it on the shelf or in a book-store. You can deduce your book’s target audience by asking yourself these questions:

What have you written? What are the different themes involved in your book? Who will most likely appreciate the content/themes discussed in the book? Who is it most applicable for? Who will your book most likely benefit? Once you identify this set. You need to further define your audience in terms of factors such as age, demographics, interests, habits, preferences etc.

If you are finding this hard, here is a quick two-step process you can use to identify your audience:

Find established/best-selling books that are similar to yours

Do some research to identify other established books in your niche/genre /category. Considering that these books already have a sizeable following, it will make your job of identifying target readers a whole lot easier.

Search for the book or the author on Social Media and platforms like Goodreads

Hardcore fans of books usually end up actively engaging with the author and the book on multiple platforms. Connect with them, check out their interactions and make note of factors such as demographics, trends, likes, dislikes etc.  This should help you build the profile of your book’s ideal audience. 

Defining your target audience is an important task that every aspiring author needs to think about. The earlier you start, the more helpful it should be when it comes to structuring your book.