Who Will Want to Read Your Book? By Walt Shiel

Today, I am happy to introduce you to an author and publishing expert who I have been following for a long time now. Walt Shiel is the managing partner for Slipdown Mountain Publications and someone who always has great words of advice on is blog. Today, Walt will discuss the question at the heart of every author's work: Who will want to buy your book?



I have one quick in-house announcement before we get to Walt's post. Kat Smith and I will be will be in Richardson, TX. on Saturday, April 30th from 9 am to 1 pm to conduct a workshop entitled, "How To Market Your Book And You." You can register at the Writer's Guild of Texas site. You can also read Kat's guest post last month titled, 20 Tips For Performing Best Selling Interviews. All who attend the workshop will receive my PDF of Conducting Effective Twitter Contests and Kat's The Naked Author, a $35 value.



Now, on to Walt's post...





Who Will Want to Read Your Book?

By Walt Shiel



If you're a writer and want to sell a significant number of books, you really must ask yourself who will really want to read the book you've been sweating blood to write. The more difficult task, of course, is to answer your own question.



There is really only one unacceptable answer: Everybody!



Trust me, no matter how fantastic your book is or how absolutely essential your early reviewers may claim it to be, everybody will NOT want to read it. Not even everyone in your own hometown. Probably not even everyone in your own family.



A slightly better answer: I don't know.



At least, that's honest. However, just like the first answer, it clearly indicates you need to do a lot more planning before releasing you brainchild into the wild.



So, considering that advice, you decide to narrow it down to... all women 18-35 years old.



That's a bit better, but I will bet that only a portion of women in that age bracket are really going to be interested in your book. To develop a realistic answer, you need to identify more of the key characteristics of your most likely readers.



One way to begin: identify your own likes, dislikes, and passions. Then ask yourself how many of those characteristics would apply, in general, to most of the potential readers who would truly be interested in your book. Here are a few questions about those 18-35 year old women to help you better identify your true target audience:

What other books have they read?




What magazines do they read (and what kind of stories do those magazines publish)?




Where do they hang out online and off?




Do they belong to clubs and associations of like-minded people?




Are they mostly single, married, divorced?




What kind of jobs do they have?




Are they fashion-conscious or oblivious to such things?




Are they aggressive in the work environment or struggling to overcome shyness?


The more such questions you consider, the more clearly you will be able to define your target audience. It might even help to write a couple of brief biographies for your ideal readers. Sort of the way those of us who write fiction develop a thorough back story for our characters. This will give you something more concrete on which to focus, allowing you to write your marketing copy to "Executive Jane" or "Office Assistant Sally" rather than some amorphous anybody.



Now, you must spend some time figuring out how to locate these readers and how to contact them. Maybe an article in their favorite magazine (or ezine) or perhaps in the membership magazine of their professional association. Or maybe you join in on conversations on the popular blogs and online groups that they frequent. However you do it, you've got to work at it.



When you start putting together your marketing messages to these potential book buyers, keep in mind that buying a book involves spending discretionary funds -- in other words, money left over after paying for the necessities of living. Each of those potential buyers has four options for spending those discretionary funds:

Buy your book




Buy some other book




Buy something else (other than a book)




Buy nothing (and keep that money in a pocket or bank account)


In other words:

Your direct competition may be another book, or it may be a lunch, a movie, a DVD, a new T-shirt, or just about anything else of comparable price.




You must convince potential buyers that your book will provide more education, entertainment, enlightenment, or something else of value than any of those other things on which they could spend the money.


You have to craft a marketing message that clearly and unequivocally answers the question that has driven all successful marketing since the first human being wanted to trade something he had for something somebody else had -- the customer's often unspoken question of "What's in it for ME?"



And you cannot answer that question unless you have a clear picture of the type of person you are trying to convince to buy your book. Which brings you right back to knowing for whom you wrote the book. Only then can you say, "If you read my book, you will learn how to..."



And you will have some confidence that the benefit will matter to them.



Once you have mastered the above, you should have a much better idea of how to write the back cover and other marketing copy for your book. After all, it should be aimed at your primary target audience.



Now... ask (and answer) WHO WILL WANT TO READ MY BOOK?





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Walt Shiel is the managing partner for Slipdown Mountain Publications and Five Rainbows Services. He is also a published author of over 100 magazine articles and five books, including the upcoming Rough War: The Combat Story of Lt Paul J. Eastman, a "Burma Banshee" P-40 & P-47 Pilot scheduled for release on Memorial Day.  

















Update On The Contest Due to technical difficulties beyond my control, I will be announcing yesterday's daily prize winner and today's daily prize winner for the contest on tomorrow's post. Good luck to everyone







 



-------- Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect , an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure." He is also the author of the Twitter marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests .