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Why I Think Men Should Read My Romcoms Too (Why Finding Your Target Audience Is Tricky)

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This post is for two groups:

  • Authors struggling to find and reach their target audience. (PS I am still figuring this out. But I have some useful tips to get started.)
  • Men who love short and entertaining romcoms that don’t devote 40 pages to how hot the male main character is.)

Let me explain.

As authors, we are expected to have our elevator pitch, aka a brief but intriguing description, for all our books ready at all times. Mine is:

  • I write short and fun escapist romcom dramas even men can enjoy. I feature big casts and multiple POVs.

So why “even men?”

There are a lot of romcom fans out there, and not all of them are women. Sure, some men are dragged by their girlfriends to the movie theaters, but many enjoy the experience. And they are probably more comfortable buying movie tickets than being seen reading books with hot men on the cover.

Men reading this post, be honest: How many of you hated watching The Ugly Truth?

Or What Women Want?

Or The Wedding Crashers? (If you did, why???)

Okay, okay. Taste is subjective. But surely you see my point. And if you haven’t seen these movies, please watch them. They are hilarious. And romantic. And so much fun.

Maybe I am weird. Maybe the reason I am not a bestselling author yet is I have strange tastes.

But I’ll name two romcoms or romances I didn’t love with the passion as the rest of the public:

  • Notting Hill.
  • The Notebook (based on a book)

They aren’t bad. They are great in some ways even. They are just not for me.

With Notting Hill, I didn’t like the romantic storyline.

With The Notebook, I am a bit turned off by how incompatible they are. I also don’t like unhappy endings, no matter how much romance and love you pour into them.

Here are some romcoms I adore:

  • Pride and Prejudice (movie and book)
  • Just Like Heaven (The movie. Didn’t read the book.)
  • The Holiday (Yes, I love writer/director Nancy Meyers)
  • While You Were Sleeping
  • Someone Like You
  • 27 Dresses
  • Kate & Leopold
  • Friends with Benefits
  • 10 Things I Hate About You
  • Laws of Attraction
  • Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
  • Can You Keep a Secret? (Great book. Fun movie.)

Some are rated PG, some are PG-13 and some are R.

The majority have biggish casts and interesting subplots. Some have elements of sci-fi or fantasy.

At the end of the day, they have fun premises and end HEA. No one dies. The main characters find The One. The main characters don’t cheat on their loved ones, most people are very attractive, and the characters are flawed but likable and relatable.

I use multiple POVs, because I get bored if we are only in one person’s head. Especially if that one person is only about the girl/boy they like. Remember the Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie 5oo Days of Summer? I like that film as a character study of an obsessed young man who’s clueless about how real love works. And I love watching Gordon-Levitt as an actor. But if you try to sell that film as a realistic romcom, we’ll have words. A romcom is about two people finding mutual love. Not one guy spending an entire film chasing a girl and ignoring what she says or wants.  And guess what, Levitt is on my side.  He believes his character’s the villain if you are desperate to find one.

Back to my romcoms and why men can and do enjoy them:

While my characters meet, fall in love, and stay together, there’s more to their life than each other. They have dreams about their careers, close friends, and hobbies. They listen to each other.

I simply don’t have the book space just to talk about how they look for so many pages on end. They are hot. End of.

But if you don’t like good-looking characters, you won’t like most romcoms. Not just mine.

What about realism?

What realism?

Kidding. But there’s a reason I put the word escapist in my elevator pitch.

Look some of my favorite movies include Braveheart (historically inaccurate), The Crow (dude comes back from the dead), and Speed. I adore Atomic Blonde and John Wick. So…

Of course, my characters live in the real world and they have problems. But it’s not all problems. They have good things going for them too because life is like that. You have ups and downs.

If my character’s boyfriend dies, I’m not going to give her cancer.

If my character’s broke and stuck in a bad job and relationship, you can bet she’s going to have amazing friends who will help her out of this mess.,

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the things that will help you find and/or reach your target readers:

Choosing a genre-appropriate cover

This is where things get tricky, at least for me.

My audience is more women than men, but it’s not only women.

My books are semi-steamy: My characters have sex. And I tell you this. I just don’t describe it in detail. Unless you only read clean romance, you’ll be fine reading my books.

My books are romcom dramas, especially A Change Would Do You Good, the first book in the A Change Would Do You Good series. The main character’s boyfriend is dead. One of the major characters struggles with agoraphobia. Naturally, I didn’t think a pink cover or a cover with a semi-naked dude would be appropriate or reflective.

You can study covers of well-selling novels in your genre all you’d like, but it doesn’t mean much unless you also look at the plot, style, and themes of those books.

I believe my cover designer did a fantastic job. Remember: big cast, surfer main character, several surfer supporting characters, big moves, and changes. Set in San Diego.

Writing your blurb

I shelled out and hired Best Page Forward to rewrite mine. I like the result. I hate writing summaries, blurbs, and synopses with a passion. If you need it, get help.

Until I could afford it, mine was written by me with feedback from author friends who read in my genre.

Bad reviews (news flash: they do suck.)

It doesn’t matter how much you emphasize what your book includes, you will have people complaining about what it includes.

If you only want to read about a small cast of characters, detailed sex scenes, and one-person POV, don’t read my books. If you hate swearing, don’t read my books. If you love literary books and pages and pages of narration about things unrelated to the plot, don’t read my books.

Why lose time over something you are not into?

Unfortunately, your non-target audience will find you and will leave you 1-2 stars.

I am not going to tell you to develop a thicker skin. I hate it when people do that. It’s easier said than done, and I hate impractical advice.

Sure, if you have 5,000 awesome reviews, even 500 bad reviews won’t hurt. (At least it shouldn’t hurt much.)

But when you just have 5 or 10, or if you have many but a few is all you have on a given Amazon page (because they are scattered around Amazon’s various country-specific pages and Goodreads), you freak out.

So, Authors, what do you do?

  • Continue your search. Tell whoever asks about your book, but also tell them what it isn’t.
  • Trust that the right people will find you, and that remember that you probably have a couple of favorite movies on IMDB rated only 5-6 stars over 10. A high rating means the writer reached their target audience. Not that you’ll necessarily enjoy that book.
  • Write more books so you increase the chance of being discovered.
  • Love your fans. Even if you only have a few.
  • Improve your writing and marketing, but don’t stop being you.
  • Check if you are meeting genre expectations. If you aren’t, notice if this is on purpose or by accident.

Here’s what I mean: An action drama can kill off its protagonist. An action/thriller usually doesn’t. I love Jack Reacher. I read all the books, and watched the movies and the Amazon series.

Love them all. I’d be so pissed if Reacher was killed off. So if you want to write an action thriller with a  super soldier, cop, or spy but want to kill them in the end, you will need to find people who will enjoy this.

If you think you might be betraying genre conventions accidentally, the fix is a little easier. You read the well-selling books in your genre, find the common ground and apply them in a way that will work for your story. If you don’t know what these expectations are, you’ve got some studying to do.

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Men,

Worry not, a lot of my female MCs are beautiful. And while they might lust after Mr. Darcy and want to be romanced, they tend to love action films, having fun, and rock’n’roll.

Why not read about fun, flawed but decent people trying to make the most of their lives as they find passion and love?

How to apply vague/abstract marketing advice 

It sounds abstract to me when marketing advice asks me to create a reader avatar to represent my target audience. They want to paint a clear picture so I know who I am talking to. Or create different several avatars which include sex, occupation, kids, marital status, age, outlook on life, and maybe even their income bracket.

Come again?

How do you do this when you are just starting out or have a small number of books and a small audience?

Let’s try the exercise for my books. You can try for yours.

You are a man or a woman.

I know that you – my target audience – believe in love. I know that you are a cynical or hopeful romantic. But I don’t know if you are single or married. Whether you have 0 or 5 kids. (Some of my readers are single. Some are happily married. Some have 0 kids. Some have 3.)

I know that you love life, even though it pisses you off sometimes.

I know that you love your friends and non-toxic family members.

I know that you desire or have a job you love.

You have hobbies. You can care much about both deep and superficial stuff.

You like money, but you like your freedom a bit more.

You are probably not too into literary fiction.

You care about the plot.

I don’t know your favorite drink or sport.

I can’t.

You are probably between the ages of 25-45, but this is a guess based on the average age of my characters, and the readers who talk to me.

And you like certain things left to the imagination, you know, like how much tongues are involved in a kissing scene.

This is as specific as my avatar can get. You tell me, where do these people hang out? 🙂 (Because that’s how we sell, right? By being where the readers are.)

How did your avatar exercise go?

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Summing Up

  • Defining your audience is complicated.
  • People have complicated tastes. I can’t just go to the beach and ask surfers to buy my books.
  • You need to do a lot of research, go through trial and error, and yeah, suffer a bit in the process.
  • In the meantime, don’t ignore potential targets (or books you might enjoy) because of stereotypes.

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6 Things Readers Can Do for Indie Authors (aka Self-Published Authors)

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Happy Indie Author Day!

Indie author and self-published author are basically the same things, except a quick search online tells me indie author means someone who writes and publishes their books for a living, while a self-published author can write just for family and friends.

I don’t mind either term, but I prefer self-published.

Since I’ve had to do a lot myself, I liked the word self in there.

And even though you hire people for some of the crucial tasks like editing and cover design, you still have to come up with the money yourself.

With the definition of the concept out of the way, I’ll explain why my non-self-publishing audience should care. (I’m sure my fellow self-published authors will be nodding along the way.)

Self-publishing is becoming the go-to-choice of increasingly more authors, including previously traditionally published ones. Some authors choose to enjoy both worlds while quite a few stick to one team.

Self-publishing has a lot of attractive pros, both for the reader and the author:

  • There are no barriers to entry.

This doesn’t mean self-published authors can and should ignore quality. On the contrary, they have to constantly up their game so they can keep up with all the books being published, by traditional authors and other fellow self-published authors.

What no barriers means, instead, is that writers can get their words out there more quickly as opposed to chasing after agents and publishers for years on end.

  • They can be as slow or as fast as they like.

Self-published authors aren’t bound by the same length expectations of traditional publishers or certain agents.

They can write shorter books, publish more frequently, and in doing so, unite readers with awesome story worlds faster.

  • They can price at will.

Exceptions aside, self-published authors look at other self-published authors and reader expectations for pricing their books.

Most indie e-books books change from free (as in the writer is giving away this book) to $4.99. (At least this is so in the romance genre.)

Traditionally published books are usually more expensive.

  • It’s easier to build a direct relationship with the author.

While there are self-published authors making all sorts of bank and bestsellers list, many don’t have thousands of raving fans yet.

Obviously don’t get your stalk on, but you’ll have an easier time reaching the author.

Authors remember reviews that go into detail about favorite characters and non-spoiling accounts of what the reader enjoyed the most.

You might end up voting on the cover of the writer’s next book, helping name a character, deciding on a certain twist or other important story detail.

Traditionally published authors might get a vote on their cover themselves, but the publisher won’t be likely asking for your opinions.

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So there you go. These are 4 great reasons to read more indie authors, if I say so myself. And yes, I read a lot of self-published authors. I walk the walk. 😉

Now that you know the why, if you want to help your favorite self-published authors reach a bigger audience (because a bigger audience means a better chance of making a living which consequently means, you guessed it, more great books), there are 6 things you can do.

6 Things Readers Can Do for Self-Published Authors

  1. Read the book.

OK, I know you are saying no shit, Sherlock. But hear me out.

Reading the book might be the most obvious thing, but it’s certainly not the easiest.

Reading takes time. I can’t read as much as I want to, and I read like crazy.

Taking the time to read someone’s work in its entirety is the single best thing you can do for them.

How can you read the book?

Well, you can buy it, yes.

Or you can borrow it if the book and you are both on Kindle Unlimited.

But you can also offer to beta read or read a review copy.

Beta-reading is when you help an author improve their drafts. You might or might not get to read the final version.

Authors always need more reviews (which I will get into in a bit.) So, before they launch, they will post on their social media and write in their newsletters, asking for early readers (so that they can read and review the book).

How do you receive those newsletters? You subscribe to their email lists. How do you subscribe? Well, they will be promoting it left and right.

Want to get on mine? Here’s the link: https://writing.pinartarhan.com/newsletter/ Subscribing to author newsletters has other benefits, which I’ll get to shortly.

  1. Buy the book.

This again?

Well, yes.

If you can afford it and think the author is worth it, you should buy the book even if you received a free copy.

This is how online bookstores come to decide the author is worth reading so their algorithms recommend their books to more people.

More purchases lead to more purchases.

  1. Review the book.

Review the book. If you hate Amazon, review it on Kobo. Or Goodreads. Review it on your blog or social media.

But review it.

If the book is on Amazon, though, the writer will especially appreciate the reviews there.

Amazon has a bunch of strict rules about who can review what. And not everyone who reads the book leaves a review.

Then there is the regional stuff. I have reviews scattered around Amazon. Italy, The Netherlands, UK…Which is great, but when someone goes on Amazon.com, they will see fewer reviews in total because reviews are not all in the same place.

No/few reviews stops or slows down sales. More reviews keep the book more relevant. Amazon shows it to more people. More sales.

Whether the book has 1 review, 10 reviews, or 50 reviews, that author needs your review. But the book with fewer reviews needs reviews more than the others.

And please don’t be daunted by the word review either. No one wants a book report.

But a writer needs a bit more than “I loved it/I liked it/It was okay.” You can mention parts you enjoyed, characters you identified with, being impressed with the quality of twists (without spoilers), talk about how well-written the sex scenes were…

Anything about the book/writer’s writing style is fair game as long as you don’t give away spoilers. (And if you didn’t enjoy the book, keep it constructive and decent.)

And if you want to do the writer a real solid, give them permission to use your name and review as a whole in their marketing of the book.

  1. Spread the word about the book, online and offline.

Writers need readers. And word of mouth can spread like wildfire. But someone needs to light the spark.

If you enjoyed the book, tell people. Tell them in person. Tell them online.

Post about the book on social media and/or website if you have it.

If you are following the writer on social media, like/retweet/upvote/share/etc. their posts. This will help increase their visibility.

  1. Talk about this book and other books with the writer

Whether the writer is your friend or someone who is just really good at engaging with (potential) readers online, writers love to discuss their stories.

For a lot of writers, their books are their babies. You can talk about what you liked. You can talk about what you didn’t like (but be gentle.) You can discuss suggestions and expectations.

This will inspire and motivate the writer. This might prevent them from banging their head on their desks when they are lost.

When readers talk to me about their favorite events, characters, expectations, surprises and ask questions, it’s one of my favorite things in the world.

  1. Subscribe to their newsletter.

Email newsletters are the direct communication link between the author and the reader.

Authors share their news, latest blog posts, upcoming projects, *free stuff, answer reader questions, and more in their emails.

The free stuff is exclusive to the email list and can be anything from sample free chapters to deleted scenes, bonus chapters to character interviews, fun trivia to entire new stories/books.

You can also ask questions, send requests and reviews to the writer.

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Happy Indie Author Day!

If you are a reader, thanks for supporting us.

If you are an indie author, may all the right fans find you.

Launching A Travel Blog, Publishing A Novel, Project Overwhelm and Spring Fatigue

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Spring is here my fellow writing addicts! That means more sun, happiness and unfortunately extra tiredness and sleepiness. I’ve taken to eating more healthily, moving more and getting some herbal-based supplements that are supposed to boost the immune system.

In the meantime, I’ve tried to launch my travel blog and my novel as an e-book in addition to my other writerly duties such as pitching, writing, marketing, researching and so on.

I say “try to,” because launching a new blog has been a step well beyond my comfort zone. Don’t get me wrong; I love blogging. I love WordPress. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, and I believe I have gotten good at it.

But there is something stressful about starting over with a new blog, picking a theme – which I argue is one of the most frustrating things about blogging – and getting an audience to a blog you are proud to show people.

I’m still working on the design, but the first post is ready for consumption and sharing: How to Financially Survive a Trip to Oslo

And finding a theme that suits your needs, expectations and wants is no easy feat, as I wrote about it here. The fonts change, level of flexibility and options differ. Whether you are going for a free or premium theme, I wish you luck.

(This blog runs on the premium Studio Press’ Focus Pro – aff. link.)

But none of that compares to the challenge of publishing your novel. From deciding on whether you are going to work with individuals or a company, from deciding on whether you’ll format yourself or hand it over to a professional, from downright infuriating copyright laws to marketing, it is mission impossible for writers. Or it has been for this writer.

I decided to go with a self-publishing company that came highly recommended to me. And while they have had their pros, I continue to be disappointed by their after-publishing customer service. I talked about my self-publishing woes in this post.

If you try to buy my book but can’t, comment and I’ll try to find a link or a solution that works for your company.

My novel is currently only available digitally. You can check it out on Amazon (aff. link).

About the novel:

Making A Difference (M.A.D.) is a contemporary romantic comedy with some drama attached. It’s set in New York, and this is the plot summary without spoilers:

Everybody loves Jay. He’s that humanitarian PR guru who doesn’t live like the rich and runs a profitable company so that he’ll have more resources to help people. He defines himself through how much he and his company make a positive impact.

He’s engaged to a gorgeous CEO whose purse collection could feed the homeless in NYC, but he’s only human.

If anyone notices the irony, it’s Jay’s new partner Zoe. 10 years older than her, Jay is the reason she studied PR. So when Jay’s business partner/best friend takes a less pressuring position, she’s delighted to return to the firm she interned for.

But Jay and Zoe have a big secret: 5 years ago, they fell hard for each other. She was a student at NYU where Jay was a lecturer. To Jay, his legacy was everything, and he’d never risk his reputation by dating a student. Moreover, he’d die before he let Zoe ruin her career. She is furious he doesn’t take the risk for them. She leaves the country to get over him.

And now she’s happily coupled-up with lovely writer Colin.
Colin detests Jay, and he doesn’t even know the entire story. Zoe’s upset Colin’s turning into a whiny jerk, but he’s the first guy she has felt strongly for in a long time.

Jay can no longer dismiss his feelings as nostalgia, but Zoe’s still furious at him. And the last time he tried to fix things, she left the company and the country. And now that the stakes are even higher.

Will Jay be able to follow his heart even when improving the world seems easier?

 

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What have you been working on?

Self-Publishing Your Novel with Mill City Press: Pros and Cons

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The cover!!! 🙂

My debut novel Making A Difference (amazon link) was finally on electronic bookshelves. But before I could hop to social media promoting the hell out of it, I encountered one weird problem after another.

I don’t know how many of these problems are due to Mill City Press. But I do expect them to help me fix it.

So far, with the weekend in between, customer service hasn’t exactly been fast, but if this week things don’t get done, I might officially regret my choice.

Here are some of the problems:

– It’s available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but only people from certain countries could manage to buy it so far.

I live in Turkey. The company is American, and my novel is in English, and I have friends and audience all over the world. So far, friends and family haven’t been able to buy the book. We tried Barnes and Noble, as we had the same problem. My customer rep hasn’t offered any solutions up to now.

Amazon suggested I changed my address to an American one. Which worked. I can buy my own book, yay? But this is obviously a temporary and narrow-reaching fix. If you have ideas, I’m happy to hear them.

What’s the point of releasing a digital book if it can’t easily be accessed worldwide?

– The customer service is slow to respond, and they want a phone call to go over the issues.

I get that my book is not their only problem, and I’m not their only customer. But my whole reason to involve a company was to be able to bypass technical issues and potential problems.

While anything can go wrong at any time in this world, I expect more from a company in this digital day and age. Them being available on weekdays on a normal 9-to-5 schedule wreaks havoc in my life because there is a considerable time difference between Florida and Istanbul. And making International phone calls are expensive, and apparently, they don’t do Skype.

Wait, what?

In 2018, after paying a hundred of bucks (just for the website, formatting/distributing the book has a different cost that I paid) I have to pay to fix problems?

Why isn’t there a way to chat with their authors online?

That doesn’t sit very well with me.

– They forgot to email me about some big news.

Writers tend to be obsessive about certain things, such as waiting to hear from their editor and checking their email about a million times a day. It is worse when you have an author account, and you are checking expectantly if they formatted your book so that you can more or less estimate your launch date.

Then you read that you will get an email notification with important updates so you relax (a bit) and go about your days. Then you don’t get an email notification when the book is ready and already on Amazon.

Ouch.

– My supposed $99/year (if I choose to renew it later) author site is a big nothing.

Imagine just an image picture of my book. But instead of the book, it just says image not available. You can’t click on it. There is no writing. You can’t find my name or my book among the collection when you search. And the most popular categories have got nothing to do with mine. Lovely.

Below is the screenshot of my author website.

Appealing, right? Notice how the promoted categories are Christian books? My book is a contemporary romantic comedy where characters are mostly liberal agnostics with some strong opinions. It’s PG-13, but still…Not the best marketing strategy on my end or theirs.

100 bucks might not sound like a lot of money to some, but I could get hosting, find a theme and make a website myself with that. Hell, I could just spend it on ads or improving my writer website and sell it here.

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After these major cons, let’s include some pros:

  • The formatting looked good.
  • The package was affordable. They are fast responding to your questions/concerns prior to making the investment.
  • They work with authors from all over the world.

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Do I recommend them? It’ll all depend on how/whether they fix the existing problems. Stay tuned. And while I can’t see my sales at the moment, you can always help me out by buying the book and leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Have you published your novel yourself? What problems have you encountered?

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