Are you my audience? I have a hard time knowing. That’s one of the first things they recommend when planning your marketing strategy — “Who is your target audience?”
I don’t even know what genre to put Felix in. You know genre, the bookseller’s favorite tool? I understand why it is — it provides quick and simple classification for broad appeal. Felix is a lot of things to a lot of people and it changes episode to episode. Urban Fantasy? Kinda. Fairy Tale and Myth? Heavily rooted. Paranormal Suspense? Sure, lots of that. But also, nothing bad truly happens, so it’s got to be a Cozy Mystery, for sure? To that, I shrug.
Okay… who, then, do I think will read my book?
I have no idea. I write what I write to be entertaining. Both to myself and to those who find joy in my strange words. The ones who aren’t quite happy with the glut of formulaic books broadly available. Mine certainly isn’t one of those.
I often find myself quoting myself on this topic. In Felix Chance — Lenore’s there’s a passage that rings exceptionally true where the bookstore owner is trying to apologize for not reading Felix’s book even though it’s on the shelves.
“I read the latest dedication, Felix. That’s about as far as I got.” Very matter of fact, was Marty, straight to the heart. “Sorry,” Marty looked at me apologetically. “Nothing against it, and I’ll get through it, just…”
I forestalled him, knowing where he was going. I’d seen people pick it up and put it right back down. Like most of my words. Disinterest plain on their face.
“Marty, I’m not hurt by the ones who don’t like it.” It had taken a bit to get there, but it was true. “I write them for the people for whom it becomes their favorite. For those who cling to that book like a lifeline. There are plenty of people out there no one is writing for. I write for them.”
I also write for myself. I can’t not. I spent too long suppressing it, feeling unequal to the task, but then it all slipped away. One day you just wake up and realize there’s no more time to do the things you want to do. So quit making excuses and do them!
And it is true — I write for the people no one is writing for. More specifically, I publish for the people no one is writing for. For those who find nothing to connect with. I suffer my gathered words getting stuck on a page, dropping in rank, as thousands of people don’t click ‘Buy’ — served up in searches to people wanting the latest copy & paste job, that’s fine. I watch the ad dollars drop, one single sale from a click that costs more than the book. I hope they treasure it.
I write Felix to be resonant. It’s unlike anything else I’ve read on purpose. I can write formulaic, I do write formulaic sometimes, but I don’t necessarily find joy in writing what’s traditionally popular. I find joy in writing the odd bits of wordplay prevalent in the Felix Chance stories. Stories to quirk the imagination and bend convention on ear.
And if my work is overlooked by thousands of people because it doesn’t have a simple premise? So what? They aren’t my audience.
I won’t find my audience unless I put my work out there and keep putting my work out there and shoving it in front of people’s faces. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them are going to pass — probably more like nine-hundred-ninety-nine, honestly — but that hundredth or that thousandth person needs this book they’ve found their way to. Whether it becomes their favorite or not, doesn’t matter, what matters is the book finding its way into their hands when they most need it.
That’s what matters.
There are millions of books in the world and millions of readers. But sometimes it just takes one to change everything.
–j.e. pittman