Julie Broad (Book Launchers) explains how nonfiction authors should define and reach their ideal reader by being specific about who will benefit, understanding their mindset (fears, hopes, obstacles), and doing targeted market research. She contrasts vague demographics with concrete audience descriptions (examples: mortgage professionals being left behind by digital consumers; veteran band directors), and recommends tactics like one-on-one coaching, lurking in forums and social groups, searching Amazon/Audible/Barnes & Noble to see popular resources, reading reviews/comments to find gaps, and surveying an existing audience. She suggests spending about 30 minutes per day for 2–4 weeks (≈20 hours) to research and refine the reader profile.
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About 30 minutes per day for 2–4 weeks (≈20 hours).
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The best books make a reader see themselves in the situation. They allow them to see solutions, feel changed, and inspire that reader to action. That's never gonna happen if your book is boring. And it also isn't gonna happen if you don't know how to get into the mind of your reader and meet them right where they are today. If you don't know how to figure out the hopes, dreams and fears of your ideal reader, this video absolutely is free for you. Hey there. I'm Julie, the book broad from Book Launchers. We're your professional self publishing team helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book that will help you have a huge impact on your readers. And done right, it's going to help you grow your brand, build your business, and make you money. And the best part? You keep all rights and royalties. Unless you're a mind reader, you're thinking, when am I going to get a vacation away from my husband, son and dog? I knew it. Or you've spent many years working one on one with your ideal reader. You should plan to do a little market research to ensure your book will connect deeply with your ideal reader. First, let's chat about who your ideal reader is. Please allow me to tell you who your ideal reader is. Not it is not everyone. Your ideal reader is Specific. Nobody has everybody in their audience. There are always people who won't won't be in your audience. Health conscious folks like myself won't drink Coke or Pepsi no matter how many feel good commercials they put out or how many coupons they put in front of me. We all need to see a doctor from time to time, but we all look for something different in our medical care professionals. And while we all have eyes, some of us may want to have surgery while others are content with contacts, while others have great vision and don't need anything at all. We may have universal needs. We all fulfill them in different ways. Forget that idea that your book is for everybody. One person I spoke with told me that my book is for everybody with a paycheck and I laughed and I said, do you think your book's for me? And he said, well no, you run your own business. And I said yes, but I also get a paycheck from it. Then I said, well, is your book for Everybody working at McDonald's or in n Out Burger? And he said sure, if they want to move up. And there was the key. His book wasn't for anyone with a paycheck. It was for people working in jobs where they wanted to grow their career. And then as we dug in it deeper, we found, well, they're actually not even at any company. They're at Fortune 500 companies, where there's a clear hierarchy and a career path and there's things to do to move up. So your book is not for everybody, and for goodness sake, your ideal reader is not a demographic. It is not women between the ages of 25 and 40. It's not millennials, which is a typical thing I hear all the time these days. Let me give you a couple of examples of what I'm talking about when it comes to figuring out who your ideal reader is. This is Alec Hanson and he has a book out called Bypass. It's for mortgage professionals who are getting left behind by the digital consumer. Now, Alec could have said, my ideal reader is a mortgage professional because everyone who's in the mortgage business will benefit from what he's teaching in the book. Online marketing is a must for great business building strategies and smart tactics to attract new clients and build a mortgage business. But an audience of every mortgage professional isn't specific enough, and it's not clear enough to allow you to get into the mind of that reader. So his book is is for mortgage professionals who are getting left behind. These are likely to be people who have been in the industry for quite some time and they're used to building their business from referrals. They've built a website 10 years ago and probably haven't updated it. And if they have Facebook, they probably don't use it. So these professionals, they're not getting found when somebody searches for a mortgage professional online. And they also sure as heck have never gone live or use TikTok or Instagram or any of those kind of things. So in other words, his ideal reader is not him because he's super tech savvy. Heck, he did a live stream of his book unboxing and goes live, regularly streaming to many platforms. But he has done intense research into the industry and knows who needs his help. And as a result, he knows his ideal reader mindset, their fears, their hopes, and he can speak directly to them in his book. And he did Oscar Damas. Oscar's A Band Director's Guide, a veteran band teacher's guide to teaching music. His book is super niche and his audience is also really, really clear. It is for band directors, not even people who teach music, although they'll get ideas and benefit. It's for band teachers and band directors. It's so clear who this was for that the podcast we pitched was a short list, but an easy sell because it's obvious his book is something they want to talk about. So if you're listening to these examples and you're going oop, I don't have my audience nailed down like that. What can you do? Well, number one, if it makes sense, do some one on one coaching to help people solve the problem you can help them solve. This will allow you to hear their object, their obstacles, and get a clear sense of what helps and what doesn't when you give them guidance. If that doesn't make sense for your book topic or you just don't have time for that, I recommend you lurk around forums and Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, basically anywhere your ideal reader is hanging out and read the questions and the answers. This is good practice anyways. I do it for book launchers because I'm always curious about what problems people are encountering, what questions come up over and over again, and I even like to read the advice people get. By the way, this is also how I get a lot of video ideas. There's other sites you can also lurk around on. Quora.com is a pretty cool one to check out. You type in a question and then people answer it and you can see what answers get upvoted. You can see related questions on the right hand side. And if you really aren't sure about the conversations people are having around your subject right now, this is a great way to see who's getting recommended as a resource. Bad and good advice being given as you start to narrow down the audience and the problems that they have that you want to address in your book. Now you want to find books that people are reading, influencers they're listening to, and you can do this in a lot of ways. My three favorites are searching on Amazon for books, then looking on Audible, then looking on Barnes and Noble. Ask people on Facebook what resources they have to recommend and what I would say is ask them what resources do you recommend to solve X problem? You know the problem you plan to solve for readers in your book. Finally, if you have an audience already, a client base, or you have a podcast audience or a YouTube audience, ask them them what books or podcasts or YouTube channels they follow in addition to you. This is going to be useful for a few reasons. One, you're going to be able to get a sense of what messages they're getting already by checking out who they're referring to. And two now you know who might be a great endorsement or promotional partner for your book because your audience is already paying attention to them when you come across a book repeatedly. Read the comments. I might read to see what people like, but actually I like to focus on what they didn't like. What do people want that's a bit different? I'm not looking for haters. I'm looking for people who provide constructive ideas. Like this one, for example. This comment says this book neglects the emotional aspect of dealing with cancer. Or this review that this book is a little bit dry. I might write these things down and glance at common themes for what people didn't like. So I know how to make my book different and something that they would like. You spend about 30 minutes a day for two to four weeks and you're going to have spent 20 hours working on this and now you're going to have a really clear sense of what the people in your audience are thinking about, who they're already listening to, the messages they're already getting, and what's got them worried right now. And you're going to be able to speak directly to this. Now, not doing this does not mean your book will flop. But a book that goes, hey, I know you're worried about this and you're probably wondering how this could even be possible, and that's exactly what they're worrying about. Then you better believe your book is going to jump right out at them. So tell me, do you do any kind of reader research before you write a book? Let's chat about it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet no boring books swag. We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday, except in the summer when we take a bit of a break. And when you comment on the day a video is released, you'll be one step closer to being one of my YouTube besties. Like Kevin 2 studio number 38. I'm so happy you finally got your mug, by the way. Alan West, Brian K. Morris, Sandra Rodriguez, thank you so much for your likes, shares and comments. You make my day now. I've really enjoyed our time together today and there's so much more to share. I'm thinking you might really love this video on the Dr. Seuss Quick Tip for writing fast. Or perhaps you feel like you're suffering from writer's block. In that case, this video is a must watch. Either way, I've put on some coffee and I'd love to have you join me. In case you prefer tea, I've got you covered there too. So see you on one of these two videos.
