editorial

Choose Your Readers and Not Have Them Choose You

Irene Watson

Did you know that the readers don't choose you and it's the other way around?  You choose them with your content, your credibility, your marketing and publicity, and your outreach.  I also need to remind you there is no such thing as "general public" when it comes to your readership.  You may think that "everyone should read my book" but it just isn't going to happen, or is even possible.  If I had a dollar for every author that told me his or her target audience is "general public" I'd be retired on Mykonos right now. (And they'd still be scratching their head wondering why their books aren't selling.)

However, it doesn't mean you can control who the reader is.  I'm reminded of a recent author that asked for a review.  I read the synopsis and paired the book with the reviewer I felt was most suitable.  The author came back saying that this specific reviewer wouldn't be good because the book has some undertones of mocking religion and the reviewer had a religious background.  There was no indication of any religious mocking in the synopsis.  Although I felt this would be no issue with the reviewer I reluctantly got another reviewer.  The author came back saying he didn't like the reviewer's website and would rather not send the book to him. 

This is not what I mean by "choosing your reader."  Choosing your reader means:

*finding a need and filling it with your book (relevancy)
*writing to your target market ( nonfiction, fiction)
*target marketing to your specific reader
*being clear yourself who you wrote the book to.

In the case of the above mentioned author, I assume he had a specific reader in mind but ended up attempting to control who read the book.  The problem was, he didn't disclose who his target audience was and he certainly didn't disclose everything that needed to be in his synopsis. It's doubtful that he considered any of the points above before he wrote the book.

By the way, I cancelled the contract with the author that attempted to control who read his book. It became very obvious that he might want to control what the reviewer wrote as well.  Stuff like that is on my radar screen and gets eliminated immediately. And, yes, we do get authors that try to rewrite the reviews, put words in the reviewer's mouths, or want to write their own review and have us endorse it without reading the book. You can imagine what my action is to that!

So, the bottom line is:  Did you choose your reader before you started writing your book?

I'd like to hear from you.  Tell me here.

Video: Leveraging The Five Elements of Persuasion

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Arthur M. Mills, Jr.

Xlibris Corporation (2010)
ISBN 978145007222
Reviewed by Lisa McCurley for Reader Views (07/10)

Synopsis

Ray and his family have just moved into a small house beside a strange, vacant lot where another house once stood, and where a huge wide hole mysteriously awaits the brave or foolhardy. Ray and his friends consider the empty lot just an exciting playground until Ray hears tales of how the lot’s house burned down years ago, leaving a girl to die in the fire. According to the neighborhood kids, the little girl will come out at night to haunt anyone who dares to jump into the empty lot’s hole.

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Read review of The Empty Lot Next Door
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Nonfiction - Spirituality, Eastern Religion

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Diane Wing, MA

Marvelous Spirit Press (2010)
ISBN 9781615990214
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Synopsis

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Spotlight - reader views literary awards winner

Bookhitch Award for the Most Innovative Book of Poetry

Colors of a Man: Tribute to African-American Men by Tia Stewart

Outskirts Press (2009)
ISBN 9781432738181

Tia Stewart is Virginia's newest African-American Poet, and by far one of the most talented poets for the new millennium. Using some of the same southern style and celebrated genres as famous poets, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, and Nikki Giovanni, she handles tough subjects such as prison incarceration rates for our black youth, domestic violence, interracial love, cougar relationships, media views of African-Americans relationships, black family values, Christian marriages, and pastors in the pulpit, and many others in her series of poetry books, Colors of a Man.

Synopsis: Colors of a Man: Tribute to African-American Men, definitely delivers as the title would suggest. It is a book that speaks to all black women, and to the generations. All of the poems are specifically "engineered to be multiple metaphors," with various meanings depending on the individual reader. The way the author weaves hip-hop like poetic rhythms, with poetic techniques such as alliteration, hyperbole, personification, echopation, and onomatopoeia and then combines the poetic rhyme rhapsodies into the final poetic masterpieces, is pure poetic genius.

Read review of Colors of a Man: Tribute to African-American Men
Visit Tia's website

Enter Literary Awards Program