Know Your Audience

            During my quest to get published, I've learned a lot about the publishing industry. However, one lesson I've learned stands out as the most important is Know Your Audience.

            When I first came across this rule, I half disregarded it for two reasons. The first was that I did know my audience. I was writing my books for everyone – adults can enjoy them, but they’d also be able to read them to their kids and the kids would enjoy them, too. The style of writing and content fit snugly into the Young Adult category, thus I was covered (or so I thought).

            The second reason was that I was supposed to Know My Audience before I started writing my book, but I didn't even look into publishing until I’d finished my first book – it was a little late to be learning that rule.

            So, while doing research to better understand the categories that books fit into, I discovered a major flaw in my first book – one that was most likely (and feedback from at least one agent confirms this) preventing the book from getting into the publishing industry. Believe it or not, the most important factor when selecting a target age group for a book isn't the content, but the main character’s age.

            For example, the age range for main characters in Young Adult books is 12-18. In my first book, the main character was 9 for the first half and 16 for the second half. After learning this information, I upped her age to 12 for the first half (not a major issue, as the character acted old for her age anyway). I thought that might solve the problem, but there was another factor that – while I knew about it – I couldn't really do much about it: apparently, young adult readers will read about characters older than themselves, but not younger making the true ideal age range for Young Adult book characters 16-18, placing my split-aged book in no-man’s-land.

            All is not lost, as I just need to re-write the book entirely in the upper age range, using flashbacks and such to bring in the important bits from the younger age – a big task, but not impossible. In the mean time, my fourth book, which was written with knowledge of my audience, will soon be ready for querying agents.

            However, I felt I should pass my experience on to all the other aspiring writers out there who might not have completed their first book in the hopes that you may be saved some trials and tribulations. Do a lot of research on target audiences before starting your book (or in the early stages of writing) and make sure you fit perfectly into a category. It isn't impossible to get published if you don’t, but it’s a whole lot harder.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.