My books are published
in both hard cover and ebook formats and available through Amazon.co.uk and
Amazon.com. So they are readily available to the world-wide market. But so are
millions of competing books. What was it, I wondered, that attracted readers to
purchase my books and who were these purchasers anyway? What were they looking
for and did my books satisfy their needs?
Whether we like it or
not the answers to these questions goes back to our market appraisals that
should have been completed before we
started writing. It’s so much easier writing stories with a target market in
mind particularly if one’s lifetime experience resonates with that market, its
needs and expectations.
I have an Army and
civil defence background and my principal target market is the UK Cadet Forces.
There are about 100,000 cadets, aged 13-18 years, and volunteer adults
organised in roughly 2500 units and schools throughout the UK. I’m also very
interested in the wellbeing of badgers in UK, so I have a secondary target
market of badger supporters numbering about 250,000. (This number derived from
the number of signatures petitioning the UK Parliament to stop a planned cull
of badgers.) To satisfy the needs of these two target markets I’ve created two
streams of stories – one for cadets and the second for junior cadets.
Have a look at my
websites, www.coloneldearing.com for the
adventures of Cadet Willie McBride and www.brilliantmrbadger.com
for the adventures of Mr Badger of the North Head Cadet (Engineers) Unit and let
me know what you think at dearingr@xtra.co.nz
What’s your target
market?
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