The more clearly the author can understand the target reader—and identify their precise needs—the better the author can write a book and create sales pieces that address those needs.
Prepare to Research
It is critical for the author to know who is most likely to want and benefit from his or her book and then write that book in a way that is most accessible and interesting for his/her targeted audience.
Some authors already know a lot about the intended audience because they teach or speak to them regularly. So those authors might need to know how many people are part of that target audience in order to include that information in a book proposal to a publisher.
When you do target reader research, you are probably looking for characteristics of the intended audience, in order to understand that audience’s needs better or you are looking for some statistics that describe the size or location of that audience.
You may also be trying to answer these questions about the reader:
- What do they read?
- Where else do they go for information?
- To what groups do they belong?
- On what topics could you create a blog to start a dialogue with them?
You are searching for: books, reports, articles, press releases (called secondary sources because their author didn’t do the research, but they report on it) that can be traced back to private research groups, government, universities or other organizations like nonprofits who did the primary research and are the primary sources for the information.
You can also do your own primary research with blogs, articles, interviews, surveys and online focus groups to create new statistics.
Define the Questions
Define the questions to be answered. For example:
• What is the demographic make up of divorced women with children?
• What are some of the other shared characteristics of religious women with four or more children?
• How many men under age 40 who have started their own businesses are there in the United States.
Search the Internet
- Do a general “Google” search on keywords related to the search.
- Look for trade organizations and non-profits with large numbers of audience members who might have done research on this group of people.
- Look for business research databases such as Thompson Gale or the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org) for psychographic information.
- Look at government sources such as the Census Bureau (www.factfinder2.census.gov) for demographic data or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) for employment information or information on consumer spending.
The more clearly the author can understand the target reader—and identify their precise needs—the better the author can write a book and create sales pieces that address those needs.
Go to the Library
- Look at books, magazines, newspaper, especially trade magazines (go to http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/cat.php?cid=1231 for a full list of trade journals from every industry).
- Also see American Demographics magazine (Now part of Advertising Age Magazine – http://adage.com/section/american-demographics/195).
- Ask the question of the reference librarian who may have other sources.
- Go to University research libraries for tools available via CD, such as Choices 3.
Investigate Fee-Based Research
There is also fee-based research through www.Mintel.com (for consumer behavior information) and MarketResearch.com for lifestyle-oriented reports.
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Next Steps
Download material for your notebook
Download a PDF version of the worksheet on this page to use with authors
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