Okay, I lied two posts back, saying this was the next thing I’d tackle. I know, I went off on a stroll through social media, though if you think about it in an ironic way, that’s really what social media does: it distracts you from what you were intending to do 🙂
So, target audience.
It’s the kind of person and hopefully persons (with a capital “S”) who will not only want to read your story, but gush over it and tell their friends. So how do you find those people?
I’m still learning. However, I know you start with your genre–whatever your book is about. For me, Project Threshold is horror with a capital “H” and scifi with a small “s/f”. I know these stories also fall in line with speculative fiction, which means set in our world or a version of our world with supernatural encounters. It’s also in the vein of SCP horror–“Secure, Contain, Protect.”
Yeah. On the surface it doesn’t seem like that helps but it does. I started by looking on social media to see what kinds of people are into horror and I’ve been getting a vibe for what they’re like and what they’re into. I also looked at the content of my stories and realizing I based them off of what I’m interested in: fringe horror like cryptids, bigfoot, strange encounters, etc. it’s another avenue. I started looking at other horror authors to see where their audiences are coming from.
Slowly, you can start building a demographic: ages, gender, personality, types, and so on. Like I said, I am not there yet and I keep digging and learning but I’ve done two advertisements so far. I advertised with my favorite podcast: Into The Fray:
ITF covers people’s encounters with the strange and I think it’s going to find me some followers. I have seen an uptick in my newsletter since I advertised. I’m also doing some ads with Paranormality Magazine, figuring the same based on their content.
And you can see from this I’ve got a top banner 🙂
Time will tell how it affects my newsletter.
I’m going to try Facebook Ads and possibly Google Ads or Amazon Ads and I’ll get a real test by fire in advertising.
The point is, I’m going to try lots of different things. Yes, some will doubtless fail, and I will spend some money on these endeavors, but along the way I’ll have some successes too. Each time I try, I’ll learn something, even if doesn’t net me much. I’m playing the long game experimenting with ads and marketing to find the right combination for not only Project Threshold, but future books.
So, we’ll pick it up again in a few days, but I am willing to share all my successes and failures here.
Back to work!
Craig