How to Think Like a Marketer: Defining Audience

But I'm an author, why is this important?!

If you’re a writer, especially a fiction writer, and you see the words “think like a marketer!” you probably recoil in some mixture of fear and disdain. You’re not a marketer, you say, you’re a writer. Your job is to write moving and original prose, bringing readers into an enthralling story.

But if no one knows your prose and story exist, would they matter?

For some select few writers who can afford to write books but not sell them, perhaps it wouldn’t matter. Most writers I’ve met do rely on the income they generate from writing so it matters more than anything.

You may get lucky and have a publisher who’s adept at marketing and publicity and who’s willing and able to shell out a lot of money for a marketing campaign. This is rare and should not be counted on. You should count on doing a lot of the work yourself. I asked an accomplished writer who’s late in her writing career (she’s published 13 books now) what she wished she knew about the industry before she had published her first book and she said, “I wish someone had told me how important it would be to figure out how to be my own marketer.”

So, with that in mind, let’s talk about one of the first questions marketers ask: who’s the target audience?