Target Audience
At my reading at Cornerstone Books in Salem, MA two weeks ago someone asked about target audience. At first I thought they meant writing for an 'ideal reader,' but Jennifer O'Connell, who was reading with me, was savvy to the question. What the person wanted to know was: do I market my books to a target audience before I begin writing?
My answer: no.
Jennifer's answer: yes.
When I began writing MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT I didn't think about who would read it. Most days I hoped my chapters would be good enough to pass muster for my writing class. Even when I was polishing it up to send to agents I didn't have a great handle on how to describe it. Literary fiction? Women's fiction? Commercial fiction? Miss Snark, agent par excellence, often remarked that writer's pitched their fiction wrong. That made me feel better, though still uneducated.
Much like a resume for different jobs, I pitched my query letter differently to agents depending on who/what they represented. I mean, I never called my book something it wasn't: a cookbook, for example, but I was willing to swap women's fiction for commercial fiction if it seemed the right thing to do.
Anyway, my lack of marketing focus is now leading to interesting reviews. Barnes and Noble has my book marked as a literary thriller. Huh. And it's gotten lots of favorable reviews from sites dedicated largely to romance novels though there is very little romance in my book. In fact, I think there may be more anti-romance (relationships gone sour) than romance of the good persuasion. I think my favorite description of the novel thus far might be as a "strange little story."
Jennifer, market savvy as she is, pointed out that the excerpt I read sounded more "literary fiction" while my cover said "chick lit."
"Um, yeah," I said. I didn't have a better answer than that.
So there you have it: lack of marketing focus=confusion. Ah well. I like to think of it as "my book is all things to all people."
By the by, if you run across any interesting descriptions of MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT, please leave a comment. White-knuckled thrill ride? Sweeping epic? I want to know!