The Often-Overlooked Key to Your Writing Success

It’s Tice Week here at A. Victoria Mixon, with Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing. Carol is another Top 10 Blogger for Writers, a freelance journalist teaching through her blog how to earn a living in the nonfiction field.

And she’s going to teach us something important about audience.

GUEST POST BY CAROL TICE

Have you ever written something you thought was just wonderful, but nobody seemed to care?

You’re not alone. Often as we writers craft a piece, whether it’s a blog post or a novel, we lose track of something important. In fact, this thing is so important it could make the difference between success and starvation.

Have you guessed what it is?

It’s your reader.

If you know your reader well, you are better able to deliver work they will devour. Too often writers run on assumptions about their reader and end up creating work that doesn’t find an audience.

Why does that happen?

It’s a function of human nature that we tend to universalize our own experience—that is, we think others think as we do, we think others want what we want. By extension, as writers we think we know our audience. C’mon, we know whom we’re writing for!

But often that’s simply not true.

You have to get acquainted with your reader.

I found this out a while back when I wanted to know more about who reads my blog, Make a Living Writing. How did I find out? I asked them. I took a poll and asked readers to introduce themselves and tell me about their writing careers.

I had the impression my readers were all newbie writers hoping to break into freelance writing. That’s whom I was writing to on my blog.

But what I discovered was eye-opening.

Only about half my readers were new to freelance writing. Many were experienced freelancers—they just weren’t earning as much as they wanted. They read my blog to learn more about how they could increase their freelance income. They needed more advanced tips about the freelance-writing life, not just break-in information.

I also thought my readers were Americans, with maybe a few British thrown in. But a little sleuthing turned up the fact that a substantial number of my readers are using Google Translate to view my blog! They are located in countries all over the world, from the United Arab Emirates to Nigeria to Ireland. Some are teens, and others are retired. My readers needed to know how to succeed in freelancing no matter where they are, no matter what their age.

You might even have to change what you write.

I did. I also added a translation tool that’s easily visible in a bottom bar on my site. Since then my audience has grown more than tenfold.

In the old days—say, pre-1997 or so—authors who wanted insight into their readers’ views had to hope those readers wrote letters to their publishers. Those publishers might then forward that mail to the authors, who could read it and respond to it. It could take weeks or months to gather enough information to form a useful picture of who readers were and what they liked about a book!

In our Internet age, of course, you can get this done in a day. All you have to do is fire up your computer and ask questions. I guarantee the answers will surprise you.

Many authors are using a website or blog as a way to stay in touch with readers, so that provides the perfect platform to ask a question or take a poll. A Facebook fan page would work well, too. You might find out you want to go after a different readership altogether. Or you might discover a fervent fan base in places you didn’t expect. Think of all the rock stars who fade to obscurity in their home country, while their careers go on because they’re big in Japan.

You’ll likely find out more types of people are reading you than you ever imagined. And once you’ve got some baseline data, keep checking in to find out how your readership is changing—because it will. Best of all, you will have a better picture of your readers in your mind when you write. You’ll have the tools to grow that audience, because now you know more about it.

But however you do it, learn who your readers are and what they like. Your future success is in their hands.

What do you know about your readers, and how did you learn about them? Leave a comment and tell us your methods.

Carol Tice is a longtime freelance journalist and copywriter. Her blog, Make a Living Writing, was recently named one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers. Her upcoming Webinar is 30 Design & Content Secrets to Skyrocket Your Blog, presented with fellow Top 10 winner Judy Dunn of Cat’s Eye Writer.