Writing a book — Part 1: Know your audience

(This is the first in a series of posts to guide authors through the process of planning, writing, editing, and publishing a nonfiction book.)

“Who are you writing this book for?” That’s the first thing we ask clients who co

me to us for help in writing or editing their book.

Nine out of ten times, the answer is: “Everyone!”

Sorry, but NO book is for everyone. The adage, “Try to please everyone and you’ll end up pleasing nobody” definitely applies to books. Try writing a book meant to appeal to all readers and you’ll end up with a book that no one will want to read.

The first – and essential – step in writing is to know your audience. Understanding who you’re writing for will improve the marketability of your book, and make the process of creating the book much easier since it will determine the content and style you’ll use.

A wonderful explanation of this concept was given to students at The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

“To illustrate the impact of audience, imagine you’re writing a letter to your grandmother to tell her about your first month of college. What details and stories might you include? What might you leave out? Now imagine that you’re writing on the same topic but your audience is your best friend. Unless you have an extremely cool grandma to whom you’re very close, it’s likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms of content, structure, and even tone.”

The same goes for your book.

In publishing terms, the two factors you need to examine are demographics and psychographics.

Demographics refer to the basic traits of your ideal reader (age, gender, education, income, marital status, ethnic background, religious beliefs, geographic location, etc.). While some of this information may be immaterial to your book, it’s obvious that when writing for a 55-year old Ph.D., the content and style will be much different than for a 20-something blue collar worker with a high school education. Inclusion of scientific datum or technical explanations, and a higher Flesch-Kincaid reading level is appropriate for a sophisticated and educated demographic. A “mass market” audience requires a more simplified approach. There’s no value judgment implied in this … simply a realistic evaluation of audience needs.

Psychographics gets a little trickier and involves readers’ likes and dislikes, personality, values, interests, or lifestyle. Let’s use the alternative health field as an example since most BARD Enterprises clients fit in that category. The content of a book written by a chiropractor for other chiropractors will be completely different than one written about chiropractic for a lay audience. Further, a book intended for lay readers already open to alternative care (chiropractic patients, for instance) will contain information not necessarily suitable for an audience that’s more medically-oriented. A book targeting readers interested in “new science” health won’t be the same as one directed to an audience looking for immediate help with acute health problems.

So, who are you going to write your book for?”

** A highly specialized market. This would include groups such as fellow professionals; graduate school students; single parents with young children; highly educated, upscale readers; etc.

** A mass market audience. This still has to be narrowed down to demographic and psychographic subsets such as people who are interested in wellness rather than symptom relief or readers who prefer breezy, first-person narratives.

** Yourself. This is a perfectly legitimate answer and many people feel the urge to write for their own private reasons. They may wish to be a published author, have a personal story they feel driven to document, or want to tell their story their own way without worrying about pleasing a publisher or an audience. While very few of these books generate significant sales – and most must be self published or published only in electronic form – it’s definitely an option for writers prepared to sacrifice the possibility of being on the The New York Times bestseller list in exchange for total control of their product.

Think long and hard about your audience, decide who you’re writing your book for, and then go to step two: Decide how you’ll publish the book (options include seeking a mainstream publisher, using a “vanity press” publisher, and self publishing and printing).

All of that will be covered in Part 2 of this series.

NOTE: BARD Enterprises has been honored to help clients write, edit and publish books, articles, newsletters, and other material. Our posts and articles reflect decades of experience in writing and editing for print and electronic format.