A how to guide to finding your readers.  Part 1

Every author needs readers.  Let’s face it without readers no one will read your work.  However, for many indie authors especially those in small genres it can be a challenge to find them.  So how do you do it?

Here are several quick tips to find and begin to build personal relationships with your audience.

Find out where your readers congregate.

Get on Goodreads and Shelfari.

Create author profiles on both of these great sites.  Remember you have to be active in finding readers.  Don’t just think you can write a book, publish it and your readers will find you.  Go to them!

Both of these sites will have readers that will enjoy your book.  I always tell people that there is a market for who you are.  Goodreads contains the largest gathering of people who enjoy books.  Shelfari is also another place.  Book lovers congregate at these two places.  You should be there too!

So those are great places to begin your search.  Sometimes people ask me about Facebook.  While you can meet your readers in a group on Facebook, the other sites have specific tools that we will use to help us gather information about our reader.  Facebook is something we can use later when we find our reader and a relationship is established.  Until then I would not recommend it as a place to find your reader, but a place to interact with them once found.

Find the book that most resembles your work.

This is a key step.  What you are really doing here is assessing who your competition is in the market place.  If you own a Apple Iphone, Samsung is going to be the phone that is most like yours. If you’ve written a fantasy book, then other fantasy books (especially those like your) is what you want to actively find.

It is important that you have a good idea of which books best resemble your work.  For example,  people who enjoy Star Trek, might similarly enjoy Star Wars.  So understanding where in the literary world your book fits is extremely important.  Amazon can also help you with this.  If your book is published on Amazon you can see which books that are similar to yours that Amazon  recommends, and or which books also fit in the category your have placed your book in.  What you want to do is to find the top ten books that are in your category and write down the titles.  Especially find those titles that are close to your subject matter as possible.  Keep that list handy.

When I come back, we’ll talk more about how we narrow down even more until we find that specific reader who would enjoy your book.  So keep coming back!

In the meantime, I’m going to invite you to sign up for my mailing list!  In the emails I send out I give updates on my latest works, and insights on leadership, Authorprenuership and Christian commentary.

 

Until the next time!

 

D