Is your book engaging? As you write your fiction or nonfiction book, do you keep your audience in mind? Are you speaking specifically to your audience? Or are you just writing what you want to write—creating your book without any thought about your readers? If you are writing primarily for yourself, you could be shortchanging your readers.
How do you know when you are eliminating your audience from the equation as you write your book? One clue is your choice of titles. Does it reflect your desire to give and to share or is it a self-serving title? Examples of self-serving titles might be:
My Lifelong Struggles With Depression
The Cats I Love
Fifteen Reasons Why I Garden
Ketchup and Wine
If you have your audience in mind when choosing a title, you might use, instead:
Depression Hurt: Tips for Overcoming This Debilitating Illness
Cats You’ve Gotta Love
Fifteen Ways to Enjoy Your Garden in All Seasons
Cooking With Margaret: Comfort Foods for Winter Nights
Another indication that you are writing for the wrong audience (perhaps yourself) is when your information, instructions or story isn’t concrete or complete. When you’re writing for yourself, you tend to omit the obvious—some of the details. You write so that you understand it, but someone else reading it might not get the full impact of your message.
Whether you are writing your memoirs, a how-to or self-help book or a novel, forget about what you want to write. Determine your target audience and write directly to the reader who represents that segment of people.
I often tell writers, write as if you are explaining something or telling the story to someone from outer space.
When you sit down to write today, take a look at your manuscript. Are you writing something that will be of interest or value to others? Because of you don’t have an audience, you don’t have a market for your book and you will fail as a published author.
Who is your target (primary) audience for this book? Are you speaking to this audience as you write or are you leaving out and skimming over information, facts or aspects of your story that they need to know?
Look at your proposed title? Is it one that will catch the eye of your audience—that will resonate with him or her? Or is it a title you are attached to?
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