The Ideal Reader

In my non-writer life, I have a small handknit business. (Shameless plug. Here's the link to it.) Recently, I got new book on social media marketing.

As I read, I realized that many of the outlined strategies would work for marketing an author and/or a book. The basic ideas are the same, really. Anyone can go on Twitter and constantly tweet, "Buy my book." But that's not going to get us anywhere.  

One way of targeting the sort of people who might want to buy your book is to create an ideal customer reader profile. Of course, we would like everyone to buy our books, but in reality there are some people who will not enjoy them. So, why spend time trying to get our message to those who won't want to buy our books?

To create the profile, you answer a few questions based on who you think your book will appeal to, such as: 

• Gender
• Age
• Where do they live?
• What do they care about?
• Hobbies/activities
• Occupations
• Ambitions & dreams
• TV shows they enjoy
• What irritates them?

Of course, you might have more than one "ideal", and it's fine to create a couple different profiles. What should get your attention are things like hobbies/activities and what TV shows they enjoy. Why? Because that's one way to find possible readers.

You want to find readers who may not be familiar with your work. Where do they congregate online? This is one good place to start.