Who is Your Ideal Reader?

Lesson 7 of "How to Finally Get Started on that Novel"

Art by Mariam Chagelishvili

Lesson 7 of 8 from “How to Finally Get Started on that Novel”

Who is your ideal reader? Who is this book for?

This is a question some writers answer before they ever put a pen to paper – which I imagine is terrifically clarifying. (I think of the romance novelist who said in an interview that she wrote for tired women reading while standing up on the subway on their commute home. So specific, yet so universal!) 

But I also think that it can be confusing, and/or blocking, to think too much about people reading our work. Sometimes we really do have to write – at least that first draft – like no one will ever read it at all, so that we can be as honest as possible. 

Once we’re ready to be communicating with other readers, however, it’s time to separate out a little bit from that hot font of inspiration, and to make sure we’re leaving space for a reader to come in and join us. 

Who’s the reader?

What I find most helpful here is Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to “Write to please one person.” (He goes on to say, “If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”) Write for your smartest friend, or you five years ago. I wrote my novel The Mermaid of Brooklyn for the woman I met on the playground who said “I wish there were a novel for moms like me.” This focus will help you to make all the decisions you have to make when writing the book. 

And, ironically! The more specific you get with your ideal reader, the more universal your book will be. It’s a weird but true thing about writing, that specificity makes a story larger rather than smaller. Think about The Great Gatsby, with all its Big American Themes: at its heart, it’s a story about a handful of very specific characters. It’s these very specific characters that we are able to identify with and eventually map larger themes onto. The specific is universal. 

This feels like a simple thing: Who will read your book? But it’s connected to the larger issue of where your book will sit on the shelf. 

Who’s the audience?

Is she insane, asking where my book will sit on the shelf? Ma’am it’s a list of ideas in a note on my phone! I know, I know. But it does help, a little, to at least think about this as you’re shaping your book. You might not know if your book will ever be completed, let alone see the light of day – but you’ll be that much closer to both of these goals if you think cogently about what kind of book you’re writing.

The audience is slightly different than the “just one reader” you’re writing that first draft for. Once we’ve moved past the early stages of inspiration and big ideas, and making our various decisions about plot, character, setting, POV, if we are hoping to someday publish this book, we need to pay some attention to the contemporary publishing world. 

I hate to be so crass, when we have been focusing on the purer realm of art. But also, there are a surprising number of would-be writers who are not reading a lot of contemporary books (not YOU I’m sure), and they will find themselves at loose ends when trying to, say, pitch their novels to agents. 

Think about what big-but-specific audience would love your book (or that you want to write for). Recent college grads who haven’t read a novel for fun in years? Tired professionals who need a page-turning thriller to read on their beach vacation? People who have had an experience of terrible grief? Brainstorm who this audience is. This too will help you shape and hone your book.

What do you need to know about the marketplace, at this point?

You might want to not think about the marketplace at all while you write, and I can totally respect that. But if/when you’re ready, here a few things to keep in mind:

1. The genres of Children’s, Middle Grade, and YA literature have fairly specific guidelines in terms of word count, vocabulary, page count, and subject matter. If you’re writing with the hopes of publishing with a mainstream publisher, pay attention to these guidelines before you start. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief later on.

2. Hybrid or cross-genre books are tricky to sell. That’s not to say impossible, and you should always follow your creative bliss. But again, if you’re hoping for mainstream publication, pay attention to the kinds of books these publishers are working with.

3. Most novelists work with literary agents, and the agents are the ones who sell the book to publishers, negotiate your contract, and advocate for your book. (Agents get paid a percentage of your book deal; no reputable agent will require payment out of pocket from you.) When you’re querying agents, you’ll have to have a really good pitch for your book: a tight logline; an interesting synopsis; some solid comps. Something interesting I’ve found is that if you’re struggling to describe the story of your book in one line for your query letter, it’s often an indication that your book’s story actually isn’t crisp enough. At some point, you need to be able to condense the story – not the situation – of the book into a single line. This is a super useful revision tool, too, by the way. What was that other thing I threw in there? Comps? Oh, sigh, comps…

4. At some point (always at some point with this stuff!), you’ll want to have some comps in mind. These are “comparison titles.” Books that are kinda like yours. Think “If you liked XYZ, you’ll love My Book!” These don’t have to be exactly like yours. In fact, if they were, they would be kind of bad comp titles. Why does the world need another dark romantasy novel that’s exactly like your favorite dark romantasy novel? It doesn’t. But if you can say something like, “My Book combines the world-building of X, the strong character development of Y, and the unexpected plot twists of Z,” then as an agent or editor, I’m all in! Just make sure that at least some of these comp titles are very recent books that did measurably well in some way. Moby Dick is not a useful comp title. That’s a comparison that tells a publishing professional nothing about where your book might sit in today’s publishing landscape. Maybe “for fans of Moby Dick” works… but don’t forget those contemporary comps too.

5. One more hyper-specific industry thing: it’s going to be hard to get your book published if it’s over, say, 100,000 words. Just trust me on this one. And above all, before you approach anyone in publishing about your book, make sure it’s as good as you can get it. This involves a lot of revision – something we haven’t even talked about! It involves finding beta readers to give you feedback. It involves, maybe, hiring an editor to help you whip the thing into shape. I maintain that all of this will be easier if you know who your ideal reader is.  

Exercises:

1. Write a logline for your novel. Make sure it’s active and describes the story, not just the general vibe of the book.

2. Write the jacket copy for your novel. Who is this book for? How do you want to be able to describe it to your readers?

3. Take a page from our friends with real jobs in Marketing, and invent a persona. Who is the person who will pick this book up in the bookstore and read it with utter delight? Sketch out everything you know about this person. 

---

Up Next (Wed Nov 27) → The Process: How's this all going to happen? And who has the time?

This will be one of our paid lessons. Our paid subscribers give us the means to pay our instructors and artists (and sometimes ourselves with what is left over). If you have the means, you can upgrade below.

---

Amy Shearn is the author of five novels, including the forthcoming Animal Instinct, a queer exploration of divorce, sex, and surviving the pandemic. She works 1:1 with writers, teaches for the educational cooperative Writing Co-Lab and elsewhere, and writes a monthly newsletter called How to Get Unstuck.