3 Tips for Researching Your Book’s Target Audience
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Your target audience (otherwise known as your ideal readers) informs everything you do regarding branding, marketing, and publicity. Some standard questions include: Who are you writing for? What problems are you helping them address? Who would be interested in reading your book? What does that person look like, do in their free time, and do for a living?
It might surprise you, but the answers to these questions actually educate which fonts and colours your designers will use, which media contacts your publicist reaches out to, the back cover copy your editor helps draft, which platforms your marketing team advertises on, and more.
Your target audience is a big piece of how your book comes together, so it’s essential that you identify who they are and how you can reach them. After all, if your book is for “everyone,” your book is for no one. So, here are three helpful strategies for researching the ideal readers that make up your target audience:
1. Identify Your Comp Titles
“Comp” is actually short for “Comparative,” so when your publisher asks for your “Comp Titles,” what they’re actually asking for is a list of other books in the same genre that discuss similar topics. Who is doing what you want to be doing — and doing it well? The reason it’s so important to know your fellow authors in the same space is because they can help you develop a successful publication through emulation and mutual support.
Go to your local bookstore or online book retailer and take a look at the shelves in your genre. Make a list of names and titles you see shelved there, especially authors with multiple books (if they’re still writing, then there must be demand for their books!), and look at who is following them online. Who are they addressing on their social media and back cover copy? Who makes up their follower lists? Who are they following? This can help give you an idea of the demographics most interested in your topic and help you narrow down your target audience.
For example, let’s look at Selena Rezvani, the Wall Street Journal Bestselling author of Quick Confidence (2023), Pushback (2012), and The Next Generation of Women Leaders (2009). Selena is a great comp author for writers in a business lite/female entrepreneurship genre. When we look at her Instagram, we see a lot of tips for business professionals and leaders. We see a focus on addressing younger generations in leadership, specifically women. Looking at her LinkedIn, we see advice more narrowly targeting managers and leaders in HR and decision-making positions. Her content is not for everyone, and by niching down, she’s had great success in growing an engaged audience with 56k followers on LinkedIn and 174k followers on Instagram. A beginning business author can learn a great deal about how to advertise, market, and promote by looking at what she is doing to engage with her audiences.
2. Look at Who Your Current Connections Are
Take a look at your existing network by scrolling through your own social media platforms and even your contact list. Is it full of former and current clients? Patients? Students? Other experts and colleagues? Now ask yourself, “Who in these lists is going to be most interested in my book?” A professor might be writing a nonfiction book that addresses questions they get in the classroom, so “students studying XYZ” seems like an obvious target audience. But a secondary audience discovered from LinkedIn connections might actually be other professors teaching a similar class. Now that author has two audiences to engage with!
If you’re starting from scratch without an existing network, this may be a bit trickier. This tends to be the case for fiction authors more often than not. Zero in on your contact list and take a look at the more personal connections you have. Maybe your great aunt wouldn’t enjoy your sultry romance, but your cousin might. What are the differences between those two people demographically? Do you think other people of the same age, gender, or geographic location as your cousin would also be interested in your book?
3. Google Your Book Topic/Themes
When all else fails, Google your book. Search for keywords, themes, and even pain points (areas of concern) that you’re addressing in your writing and see who online is already a part of the conversation. Results from more traditional media like radio and TV means the topic appeals more to older audiences. A plethora of search results from Reddit and Instagram might mean a younger target audience.
Perhaps you’re surprised to see Google automatically fill in your search query before you’ve even finished typing, which gives you more insight into what real people are actually looking for. For example, when you begin typing “401k advice,” Google recommends “401k advice reddit,” “401k advice for 20 somethings,” and “401k advice for beginners.” All of that tells me that I could be targeting college students, young professionals, and young adults just learning about finance.
Another example is searching “family drama novel.” Search results show a lot of parenting bloggers and reviewers, especially mothers. While most everyone has some kind of family, “family drama” tends to appeal more to middle-aged women, and now you can narrow down your audience a little further.
There are riches in niches, as they say, so it behooves you to identify your target audience as soon as you can and start planning on marketing to them in early stages of production. More information will only help you to get your book into the right hands — and your promotions team will thank you for such clear focus as well!
Olivia McCoy is the Marketing Manager at Smith Publicity and host of their All Things Book Marketing podcast. Their professional background is in book marketing and independent publishing and their in-depth knowledge of the publishing industry allows them to educate and consult with authors from all genres including business, lifestyle, memoir, and fiction throughout their book launches. Consultation topics have included Amazon optimization and bestseller strategy, social media design and posting, author branding, book distribution, website creation and development, newsletter setup, advertising strategy, and building pre-publication buzz among others. Olivia's publicity clients have received national media placements in outlets such as The New York Times, Fast Company, Built In, Newsweek, HuffPost, and HOLA!. When they're not at work, Olivia is at home in Philadelphia with their dog, Rudy.
