(Hint: She Has a Name)
Your ideal reader is not “everyone.” She is one specific person in a particular season, role or struggle who wants something to change. Picture her. Name her if that helps. Then write as if you are talking directly to her.
I hear the opposite every year:
“My book is for anyone with any problem or any dream. It applies to everyone, at any age, no matter their circumstances.”
That sentence has killed more books than bad grammar ever did.
Narrow is the way
Broad books feel safe to authors. Specific books feel relevant to readers.
A woman browsing Amazon is not asking, “Could this book technically apply to me?” She is asking, usually in a fraction of a second, “Is this for someone like me?”
The clearer the answer, the easier it is for her to keep reading. Trying to include everyone usually has the opposite effect: nobody feels specifically seen.
I wrote for Martha
For years, I wrote every page for my friend Martha.
Martha was basically me, five or ten years earlier. She wasn’t raised in a Christian home, but she desperately wanted one. She loved Jesus. Her house was chaos. She was a young mom trying to get some time with God in the morning while the kids banged on the bathroom door.
I wrote for women in the bathroom.
They had maybe 15 minutes to get some hope and encouragement for the real life they were really living. That’s why my writing became short, direct and full of raw honesty. Martha didn’t have time for anything else.
I wasn’t trying to imagine thousands of anonymous readers. I was thinking about one woman I understood. That made the writing more personal, and strangely enough, writing for one woman helped me reach a whole lot more of them.
Your reader should feel known
The best reader connection happens when someone who has never met you thinks, “I don’t know her, but she knows me.”
She recognizes her life in the problem you describe. She recognizes her questions and the season she is in. She feels understood before she has even opened the book.
That matters because readers rarely buy nonfiction simply because a topic is interesting. They buy because something about the book feels relevant to where they are right now.
Your book should take her somewhere
Your reader is somewhere now, and she wants to be somewhere else. A strong nonfiction book helps her make that journey.
That doesn’t mean every book needs to promise a dramatic transformation. But the reader should understand why this book matters to her now. What changes because she reads it? What becomes clearer or easier? What does she understand, believe or do differently?
If the answer is simply, “She will know more about my topic,” the book may still be too broad.
Specific does not mean small
This is where authors get nervous. They think narrowing the reader means shrinking the audience.
Often the opposite happens.
Specificity creates recognition. A reader sees herself in the book and thinks, “That’s me.” And once one person feels that strongly, she tends to tell other people like her.
That is far more powerful than trying to sound relevant to everyone.
You are not writing to a demographic
“Christian women ages 35 to 65” is useful marketing information. It is not a person.
A person has a life. She has responsibilities, fears and hopes. She has things she wishes she could change and things she is afraid will never change.
The more clearly you understand the person behind the demographic, the more naturally your writing begins to sound like a conversation instead of a lecture.
What you really need
You don’t need more readers. You need one reader you understand better than anyone else does.
Write to her, and other people who recognize themselves in her story will come along.
Quick answers
What’s the difference between a target audience and an ideal reader?
A target audience describes a group. An ideal reader helps you picture an actual person within that group so your writing becomes more specific and human.
Can my book appeal to more than one kind of reader?
Of course. But trying to speak equally to everybody usually weakens the message. Start by knowing who you most want the book to serve.
Do I have to know my ideal reader personally?
No. But you should understand her well enough to write in a way that makes her feel recognized rather than generalized.
Not sure what kind of writer you are? Take my free 90-second quiz — What Kind of Writer Are You? — and discover your writer type, the hidden trap stalling your book, and your one next step.