If you’ve ever attended an amateur comedy show and heard a joke that went flat, you understand the importance of connecting with the audience. Saying something off-color or doesn’t resonate like “Hello Chicago” but you’re in Dallas, can cause the crowd to heckle or boo the comedian off stage.
Why wouldn’t this be any different for a writer? Sure we may not hear the boo’s and hisses, but it’s reflected in the ratings of our books and whether individuals come back to read our latest creations. So how can we connect with our reading audience?
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Storytelling is an art. It’s a profession we writers feel called to engage, and yet the story that we tell has to connect with someone other than ourselves. What an irony! How do we engage an audience we’ve never met? What makes some stories flop and others become bestsellers?
These are questions every serious writer has to ponder. In order to answer these questions, we’re studying how an author can connect with his audience over the next few weeks. Come on this journey with me!
A writer must know her target. Of course, you can’t know each reader personally, but you can recognize what types of readers pick up your genre. You can know of fellow writers that have similar stories to tell, and you can identify what drives their audience to the book.
This is a standard exploration for many writers. Agents and editors will often ask…
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Melanie V. Logan 