Write With Your Audience In Mind
The reason many authors can’t sell their books or articles once they’ve written them is very simple: they have no idea who needs the work they’ve just spent so much of their time writing. Writing with your audience in mind doesn’t mean you need to write without passion or that you’ll write just to collect a paycheck. It means you write to them, which requires you to think about who they are before you start writing.
Your Audience Has Needs
This may sound like an obvious statement, but it’s easy to forget when you get involved in your writing. They have needs, and they are going to read your work in order to meet one or more of those needs. If you deliver more of their needs than they expect, they will love you for it and they will be more likely to share that work with others.
Your Audience Wants Results
They are reading your specific kind of book to get a specific kind of feeling or to bring about a particular result in their life. For example, someone who is reading a book on how to build a business wants the feeling and the money that comes with success in business. Someone who is reading a romance novel wants to feel like the writer has swept him or her off of their feet. Knowing what your audience needs and what results they want is the key to writing a book that sells without a lot of effort on your part.
Talk To Your Reader
Imagine, as you are writing, that your reader is your best friend. You are sharing this with them. They love you, they want to hear it from you, and they are eager to read it. They know you have a great deal of wisdom to share with them. They know you have a lot of valuable life experience to share in your own unique way. Write as if this were a conversation with your reader.
Listen To Your Reader
If you’re worried that you wouldn’t know what to say to your reader, spend some time listening to them. Seek out the kind of people that you would want reading your books and join Facebook groups where they gather. If you’re looking for entrepreneurs, join a group for entrepreneurs. If you’re looking for corporate executives, join a group for professionals and executives.
Once you join that group, spend time paying attention to the things they post. Listen especially to the things that concern them, the questions they ask, the frustrations and fears they express. Use your writing to address those fears, frustrations, and concerns. Use what they’ve written to capture the mood of your audience in your writing.
Writing Is a Way of Serving Others
Writing, like all art, is a way of serving people. If you think about it like this, you will never find that your ideas for what you can write about run out or that you have no new material. Everything that happens to and around you presents you with new opportunities to serve. Use those as fuel for your writing.