Are You My Ideal Reader? Am I Yours? Is Making an Ideal Reader Profile Even Necessary?

Marketing experts say an ideal reader profile is necessary for authors, but I’m not convinced

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

I watched an old episode of New Girl recently where Nick, an author of a detective novel, told Jess that he envisioned his readers as “blue-collar, nautical workers on the coastline of Maine.”

He was comically way off. Turns out his book was beloved by a female YA audience. How could he have been so wrong? Nick couldn’t know which parts of his novels would resonate the most with which readers.

That’s kind of a silly example, but it captures my thoughts about trying to figure out who your ideal reader is. (New Girl, season 6 — episode 18)

What’s the Deal with the Ideal Reader?

There’s plenty of information online about profiling your ideal reader, if you’re interested. Search for “ideal reader author marketing” and on the first page you’ll get sites like this…