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You are receiving Jane Friedman’s self-study class, How to Earn a Living as a Writer. New lessons release every Friday through April 18, 2025. Browse the archive.
Week 9: To build platform, decide who you want to reach
Last week, I explained how having a platform makes it easier to earn a living, then laid out the first steps for writers who want to build a platform.
But one of the most important questions to ask yourself as you begin: Who are you trying to attract? Who will be interested in what you have to offer? In marketing speak: Who is your target audience?
The world is awash in writers who haven’t given much thought, if any, to who their work is for. It’s easy to assume this is the publisher’s job or a marketer’s job. In some sense, yes, it is. It’s part of their job to know the market and to know where to look for your readers. (Whether they do that at all, or effectively, is a separate conversation.)
But if you want to earn a living from your writing, one of the leading indicators of whether you’ll succeed is deeply understanding the audience you’re appealing to—or hope to appeal to.
I’ll give you an example of both success and failure, using my husband as an example. (Sorry, Mark.)
Mark’s passion is music, and he has a kaleidoscopic understanding of it. For years, he helped people in a Facebook group identify songs based on scant facts. (E.g., “I heard a song on the alternative rock station in 1982 in Topeka, and the chorus included the word ‘go’.”) Mark has always insisted he doesn’t have special knowledge; he just knows how to do research. So I encouraged him to write an article explaining how he identifies songs when you don’t have a recording (and/or when an app like Shazam fails you).
Mark wrote the article and selectively told a few people about it—those who moderate or run music-related media—and said, “I’m the guy who is always identifying songs for people. I’ve written about my magical process.”
Because of that simple act of outreach, his article received 10,000 visits in one day (at his own site, which normally receives no traffic), and that led to an interview request from a Gimlet Media podcast. He knew exactly who would be interested in his article, and to this day, his site still receives hundreds of visits per day for that article alone.
So that’s his success. What’s the failure? Well, it’s not fair to call it a failure, because it remains a work in progress and he does have a small, influential audience. Mark puts together a monthly music show called Gray Days & Gold that plays newly released music, primarily from artists working outside the mainstream, interspersed with his commentary. Basically, a radio show.
But his show is not on the radio. It can’t be found on Apple Podcasts. It’s not on Spotify (technically). Because of music rights and licensing issues, none of that is possible. The only venue where such a show can be distributed is Mixcloud.
Ever heard of Mixcloud? Probably not. Do people go to Mixcloud to discover new music? Not really.
Mixcloud is primarily used to distribute DJ mixes and archived radio shows. If you want to hire a DJ for your nightclub or bar mitzvah, you might end up on Mixcloud. The average person who uses Spotify or Apple Music does not use Mixcloud on a regular basis unless they are highly motivated. Highly. I mean, not even Mark’s wife is that highly motivated.
Consider: Mixcloud has 25 million active users. Spotify has 626 million active users.
This is partly a problem out of his control: Mark’s show is distributed in the wrong place if he wants to draw an indie music–loving audience who doesn’t know him yet, but he can’t distribute his show somewhere else in its current form.
But if Mark modifies how he delivers his music recommendations—in a way that doesn’t require music licensing and royalty payments—he might have a better chance at building an audience for his show.
This leads us back to the question of platform and who Mark wants to reach. If he is happy reaching a small group of music influencers who do use Mixcloud, then mission accomplished. If he wants his recommendations to be found and appreciated by music lovers like him—who seek out new, independent artists—he has to reconsider his approach and think about their daily media consumption habits and motivations. How can he get in their line of sight?
Exercise
Today, the wealth of online information and social signals that surround us means you have countless ways to develop a portrait of your audience: to see where they hang out, what types of media they consume, where they shop, whom they follow. To better understand your readers and how to reach them, here are some starting points:
- Come up with at least two or three established writers or creators who produce work similar to your own. Identify some of their fans through comments, reviews, and so on. Find a real name and dig deeper—take a look at their social profiles and website, if they have one, and develop a portrait of someone who could be your “ideal reader.” (This works best if you don’t choose a celebrity or brand-name author.)
- Which newsletters, podcasts, or traditional media outlets have interviewed or reviewed writers similar to you? Do those outlets serve your target audience? What can you learn about the audience from them? What gets people most engaged or enthusiastic? What is the most popular content?
- Where do writers similar to you appear—both in real life and online? What events do they attend? Look at their social media activity: what does it say about who their readership is? As you follow the digital breadcrumbs, a picture will start to emerge of the community the writer is engaging and how you can reach it, too.
- If you consider yourself part of the target audience you’re trying to reach, study your own habits and how you discover new work. Is it by reading mainstream publications? Through social media? From a newsletter? From podcasts? (Be careful, though, of assuming your habits are everyone’s habits. Just because you hate receiving email newsletters or listening to podcasts doesn’t mean others do.)
- Try using the online marketing tool SparkToro (which will likely cost you a modest fee) to look for people, publications, podcasts, and other information related to keyword phrases associated with your work. Or plug in your comparable authors and see what communities they are affiliated with.
As you conduct this research, soak in the language and concerns of the audience or community. Thoughtful marketing requires engaging your audience in a way that will resonate, which means speaking their language.
Explore further
⭐️ Giveaway: Get page proofs of the second edition! ⭐️
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The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (releasing April 2025)
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