What is an Audience? The Definition of an Audience for Beginner Writers
11#FantasyStorytelling #Audience #Writing
What is an Audience? The Definition of an Audience for Beginner Writers
Jay defines what an audience is for beginner writers and producers. Are you looking for an audience for your story? Let's define what that looks like for beginner writers.
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- Fiction Writing: How to Find an Avid Audience as a Writer: https://www.udemy.com/course/writing-...
- Fiction Writing: How to Write a Concept that Sells (Coming Soon!)
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TRANSCRIPT:
What is an Audience? The Definition of an Audience for Writers
You can have a lot of different goals and objectives as a fiction writer. Some of those goals don’t require an audience. But MOST writers WANT an audience for their stories.
But what is an audience and what kind of audience do you need?
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Let’s start with a basic definition of an audience. What is an audience?
An audience is the collective group of people who want to read the stories that you write and produce.
That’s pretty broad, and not helpful enough, but I’ll dig deeper into that in a minute.
Why do writers need an audience for their work?
An audience is incredibly valuable for both writers and producers. If you’re like me and you write and produce your own stories, then you NEED to develop an avid audience.
Not just an audience, an avid core audience—people who love the stories you write and produce.
Let’s take off our writer’s hat and let’s look at this scenario from the producer’s perspective.
What is the primary objective of the producer—whether it’s a book publisher or a film production studio—what exactly are they looking to accomplish? At the end of the day, they need to make money off the stories they release. If they don’t, they go out of business, and if they do, they’ll make a lot of money and influence culture.
A lot of producers want to release great stories, even if those stories don’t make millions of dollars—but the fact remains that even if they’re passionate about a story, it still needs to make them more money than they spend on it. It needs to be profitable.
When a producer looks at a story--whether it’s a book, short film, or a feature--they’re looking at it as an investment. Here are some of the reasons producers may back a project:
It’ll be profitable and make them money.
It will get massive attention and almost serve as a marketing campaign.
The story will bring them personal accolades or relevance in a positive way.
...or they personally believe in the project and want to do it even if it never makes any money or brings them any attention.
But that fourth reason is EXTREMELY rare. Which means that producers tend to only produce stories that bring them value: money, attention, respect, or something similar.
If you’re a writer, YOU should start to think like a producer thinks. Thinking like a producer benefits you in two ways:
One, you’ll be more likely to sell your stories to a producer and convince them to work with you.
Or two, you’ll be able to figure out how to produce your own stories and make money off them.
What does all this have to do with building an audience?
One of the primary ways that producers estimate potential sales, revenue, and profitability is by looking at the reach a writer already has… the reach the writer is bringing to the table.
A writer’s reach is the size of their existing audience.
But the audience is a little bit more complex than just reach, because some writers have a big following, but the people who follow them aren’t likely to actually purchase their stories.
Let’s just look at a quick example. If I start a popular blog about Disneyland, but then write a book about the history of Prohibition in America, those two audiences don’t necessarily line up. The people who read my blog won’t necessarily be interested in my book.
Which means that producers are looking at the reach of the writer AND the audience’s devotion to the writer and the topic of the story. If I had a popular blog about Disneyland, and then wrote a book about Disneyland, my reach would be great, and that devoted following is far more likely to purchase it when I promote it.
The writer needs to be able to reach a group of people AND get them to purchase whatever they’ve released.
The combination of those two things: the writer’s reach and the devotion of the writer’s followers to the story’s topic increases the likelihood that followers will purchase and/or promote the writer’s stories. That’s what I call an AVID AUDIENCE.
If you intend to write and produce your own stories, you need to develop an avid audience.
There you go.