Defining your target audience is the first and arguably most important step when beginning a new piece of writing.

Who’s interested in your topic?

Why are they interested?

How can your words capture their attention, hold their interest, and help them solve a problem?

Even self-involved and self-centered creations and works of art have an audience; it may be the creator herself, but there’s still an ideal viewer.

You need to understand that person.

The first version of my book about heartbreak felt like a good fit somewhere under the umbrella of “women readers.”

A female author writing a collection of personal essays about dealing with heartbreak would likely address the topic from a woman’s perspective and attract a female audience.

I ran with this idea for about six months, but then a number of things happened, and I found my initial manuscript trite and boring.

The over-saturated market of women writing about relationships and dating advice didn’t seem to need my input.

I looked at my project objectively and saw nothing new or different—and it wasn’t an issue additional editing or proofreading could fix. [Read more…]