How Will You Find Your Book's Niche Target Audience?

Authors Must Hone in on Their Book?s Potential Reader Niches ? One Way or Another. A Personal Case Study.

Until you target your book?s ideal niche audiences, you won?t be able to focus your marketing time, money, and effort with precision. You can either target your potential readers through a reader assessment or through personal market research.

As a marketing writer, I use to write for a company that supplied consumer segmentation data to the business world. So I fully understand the power of identifying, segmenting, and targeting customers based on demographics, geography, and other details.

Yet, while I was writing my memoir, I found it challenging to envision my book?s potential readers, try as I might.

I was compelled to write my cautionary tale about my derailed spiritual journey, even if no one else ever read it. However, I still wanted readers.

I knew that the best way to target my book?s potential readers was to create detailed reader profiles of my niche target audiences. This way I could focus my marketing efforts with precision, versus just trying to market to the proverbial ?everyone.?

So, I sat down and began profiling my book?s potential readers. I came up with two groups that I thought would likely be my new book?s best potential niche markets:

1. Spiritual seekers. These were people who had an ongoing interest in pursuing a spiritual lifestyle. The problem with this group was that they tend to like uplifting stories and books with lofty spiritual promises. They aren?t as interested in the dark side of seeking spiritual enlightenment.
2. Curiosity seekers. These are people who enjoy getting an insider?s view of unusual lifestyles, such as polygamist wives, ex-rock star groupies, or, in my case, a cult. The problem is that there is a lot of competition for this group of people, including a bunch of the reality television shows.

How Two Serendipitous Events Helped Me Re-Target My Book?s Audience

As luck would have it, two events occurred during my early book promotional activities that resulted in providing me with valuable market research about who my book?s two primary reader niches might actually be.

And neither was the audience I originally targeted.

The first thing that happened was a local newspaper reporter, who had followed the arrest and trial of my ex-guru, featured my book in an article in the local newspaper. One of the great results that media exposure was that a professor from the University of Texas asked me to speak to his graduate students.

It was my first time speaking to a group of people about my book. I was nervous, but the students were so interested and had so many questions that I calmed down and enjoyed myself.

My talk and Q&A session was supposed to last for one hour, but the students had so many questions that it lasted for an hour and a half. At the end of the talk, the professor said: ?I think this is one of the most important books ever written about life inside of a cult.?

After such a great response, I realized that academia was a prime potential audience for my book.

Meeting My Potential Readers ? One Person at a Time

The second even occurred last October. Out-of-the-blue, I was given the chance to display my book on a table at a local two-day book festival with almost 30 other self-published writers. I jumped at the opportunity.

Along with having our books on the table, we could also spend some time at the booth and talk to potential readers. I spent a couple of hours at the booth both days and talked to about a dozen people. Many people were interested, but a little apprehensive about (maybe even scared of) the subject matter of my book.

All except for one man. A psychiatrist.

We talked for about a half an hour about the circumstances that result in a person landing in a cult. He confirmed that it?s less about being ?damaged,? and more about seeking higher ideals and underestimating the charismatic pull of spiritual con men.

After purchasing my book, he said he wanted to talk to me further on the topic after he read the book. He even emailed me that night to say he?d started my book, and was already pulled into the unique story.

?I have started your book and it is compelling. I knew it would be once I heard the basic story directly from you. I look forward to reading deeper, and do hope to have the chance to visit with you again in person after I have gone through more of your book.?

Through this experience, I realized that psychology professionals and the ideal niche target audience for my book.

Now, I?m working on creating marketing campaigns to reach out to these two promising market niches.

Whether by design or by chance, every author needs to find his or her book?s ideal niche market. The goal should be to visualize your book?s target readers in your mind clearly, including their ages, genders, education levels, locations, habits, hobbies, and more. This reader persona image will help you hone your marketing to greater precision.

What do you think? Have you found your book?s ideal niche audience yet? Please share your experience and thoughts on targeting book audiences.

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The Indie Book Marketing Community gives authors an essential book marketing education ? including how to define and target your book?s reader niches. You?ll also learn how to build your platform, plan for success, set up a publicity program, and more. This Workshop is design specifically to give authors the marketing knowledge they need to promote like pros and sell more books.

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Tagged as: book marketing, niche audience, precision marketing

Source: http://www.indiebookmarketingcommunity.com/marketer/your-books-niche-target-audience/

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