5 Things All Writers Must Understand About Their Readers
Understand the psychology of your audience
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If you can embrace this single concept, fully, you stand a chance at building an audience that loves your work. If you don’t embrace this concept, you’ll have a difficult time building an audience.
So what’s the concept?
Simple. In order to build an audience and have a successful career, other people not named you have to like your writing.
Regardless of what you write — non-fiction self-help or vampire novels — your work has to be attractive to readers. This doesn’t mean you need to pander, but it does mean you have to understand what readers want.
So, what do readers want? What must you understand about them to be successful?
Start with these five core traits of any audience anywhere, and you’ll be well on your way to having a successful writing career.
Take Off Your Rose-Colored Glasses
You have to understand that your potential reader’s default position is to not want to read your stuff.
First of all, they don’t know you. The less social proof you have, which is zero when you’re new, the harder it is to gain attention.
Second, even for people who like to read, reading isn’t a high priority compared to all the other things they could be doing.
Last, even if they decide they’re really in the mood to read, they can choose from an infinite number of writers.
Why am I telling you all this? Aspiring writers have this mindset that somehow people are interested in their work by default when the opposite is true.
Nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about your work. And, for damn sure, nobody gives a damn about your dreams of becoming the next great writer.
You have to make them care.
How?
You need to become a better writer. Most aspiring writers aren’t good at writing and they shouldn’t be.
Then, you want to put your work in front of people who might be interested in your work. This means using websites like Medium and finding the right…
