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Old 06-15-2022, 03:58 PM   #1
haysRNZ
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How to attract a target audience

I've written two non-fiction books for teens and young adults and want advice on how to attract them as readers. The challenge is, I only expect a small percentage at most will want to take on my books.

Background:
What do I write about? I envision a set of 3 volumes on how to have a successful life. Volume 1 is What is your life about. Volume 2 is Mastering your life as an individual. Both are published now on Amazon. Volume 3 is yet to be written, but it will be about mastering your life as a social being--title not yet selected. I am by training and outlook a scientist (specifically a biologist). I write for bright people who want to be driven by observations of reality and reason--hence it is not about choosing a religion or how to live a religiously sound life. (Unlike many scientists among the "New Atheists," I do not think believers are fools to be made fun of. I am not hostile to religion). I also think both major groups politically (conservative/"freedom" and socialist/egalitarian) come from human nature, but neither is the right way to organize society as a whole. So, as this suggests, I write for people who think and want to consider the big questions in life. I'm not writing for entertainment, nor to make money or win fame. Rather, I see this as my biggest contribution to future generations. (FWIW, I also have a book out for adults on Western Civilization. How it arose, why it's in decline, and how to improve on it: Western Civilization II, Based on the Gap Theory of human nature and natural law.)

I'm going to give away my books, including online. The question is, do you have any suggestions on how to reach my audience? I could buy advertising, but I don't want to waste money and am not sure where to advertise.
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Old 06-16-2022, 03:51 AM   #2
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If you have a definite target audience then take Captain Picard's advice and engage! (A suggestion that dates me already, I'm afraid, since poor old Picard is looking a little seedy these days.) This suggestion includes such details as...

Don't be the person that posts the start of a thread and then never acknowledges the responses. (Leaving readers to suppose, especially given extraneous detail in the OP, that the thread is merely advertising in disguise.)

Look at where your target audience finds its recommendations and try to engage with your audience there. My experience here on MR seems to suggest that Picard would probably fit in well, so perhaps not an ideal place to find your target audience.

Hunt around for sites that review and talk about books like yours and find out if they are willing to accept submissions (some are, many aren't). Given the OP I suggest looking at self-help sites, relevant Facebook pages and so on.

And some sites are easy to place your books on so you might as well. There's the self-promotion sub-forum here. There's Goodreads ... and there's a myriad of other places too. If you're going free then look to Smashwords (see the other thread you started). You want to be where people look. A target audience helps you target your efforts, but don't neglect the big distributors.
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Old 06-16-2022, 04:01 PM   #3
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Thanks for the thougts. I'm afraid I'll have to devote more time to attracting an audience than I'd wanted.

Took me awhile to notice my posting had been moved. Sorry for the delay.
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Old 06-17-2022, 01:46 AM   #4
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It seems that Amazon have stopped offering counts of their new releases (or moved it where I didn't find it this time) but 9 years ago Amazon were showing 86,000 (that’s eighty-six thousand!) new releases in 30 days. The closest I could get to a count today was doing a search that reported "over 50,000" (new releases in the last 30 days). When I limited the search to self-help it said "over 5,000".

With that much new material coming through month on month on month, it is easy to see how one book can quickly get lost, drowning in the flood. And free doesn't cut it, a lot of that volume is free or very cheap. So if you want to be seen for more than a few brief seconds as you flash past like credits at the end of a cheap movie, you have to do something more than just send it out there.
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Old 06-21-2022, 04:52 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haysRNZ View Post
Thanks for the thougts. I'm afraid I'll have to devote more time to attracting an audience than I'd wanted.

Took me awhile to notice my posting had been moved. Sorry for the delay.
Everybody does. All publishers. All small businesses, all large businesses.

There is no movement, no buying, without marketing. It's that cut and dried, no matter how much the entrepreneur doesn't want to do it.

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Old 06-22-2022, 09:31 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haysRNZ View Post
Thanks for the thougts. I'm afraid I'll have to devote more time to attracting an audience than I'd wanted.

Took me awhile to notice my posting had been moved. Sorry for the delay.
There’s irony here and lessons to be applied to your marketing efforts. With even minimal attention paid to the format and the rules here, you’d have known that your original post didn’t belong in the General forum, having nothing at all to do with ereading. So time was wasted not only by you, until your post was moved to the place more likely to engender helpful comments, but also by those who were interested in ereading issues and not authorial ones, and by the mod who moved the post. *cough* A larger issue is that if you break the rules of a marketing venue, you might find yourself banned and permanently cut off from that market. Make the effort, especially with free platforms that owe you nothing.
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Old 10-16-2022, 02:13 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw View Post
If you have a definite target audience then take Captain Picard's advice and engage! (A suggestion that dates me already, I'm afraid, since poor old Picard is looking a little seedy these days.) This suggestion includes such details as...

Don't be the person that posts the start of a thread and then never acknowledges the responses. (Leaving readers to suppose, especially given extraneous detail in the OP, that the thread is merely advertising in disguise.)

Look at where your target audience finds its recommendations and try to engage with your audience there. My experience here on MR seems to suggest that Picard would probably fit in well, so perhaps not an ideal place to find your target audience.

Hunt around for sites that review and talk about books like yours and find out if they are willing to accept submissions (some are, many aren't). Given the OP I suggest looking at self-help sites, relevant Facebook pages and so on.

And some sites are easy to place your books on so you might as well. There's the self-promotion sub-forum here. There's Goodreads ... and there's a myriad of other places too. If you're going free then look to Smashwords (see the other thread you started). You want to be where people look. A target audience helps you target your efforts, but don't neglect the big distributors.
Engage. Yeah, I can resonate with that.

Besides replying to comments on your post, you have to engage by writing something that grabs attention (no, not click-bait) and talks about something that interests your target audience.

Reading Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence Friends is a good start... but always follow through with substance.

Happy Reading!
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