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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