Bridging the gap between your work of fiction and your potential reader.

The majority of fiction writers I know tell me their story ‘came to them’. This isn’t a cliché; it’s what happened with my first two manuscripts. We feel compelled to write a certain story so we sit for hours pouring our heart out onto the page. After months or years of hard work, we eventually have something to offer. Now what? Marketing of course – which is all about selling something to someone, isn’t it?

We have the ‘something’ – our bestseller 🙂 . Now, we just need the other component – the people who want that something.

Broadly speaking there are two ways of going about this: Research first or Write first.

Research first

Before you even put pen to paper, you find out what your target reader likes and you create it. This is where some fiction writers part company with me. We shouldn’t worry about what is popular, we should just go ahead and write what we like. Shouldn’t we?

I am forever grateful for brave pioneers in literature who bucked convention and wrote what was on their heart. But, let’s face it, we’re probably not the next James Joyce. And if we want someone other than a family member to hand over cash for our book, we need to make our writing into something readers will pick off the shelves.

Read

The best way of doing that is to do what all good marketers do: conduct research. For writers this is spelled ‘read, read, read’. When I say read, I don’t mean snuggle up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and the fire roaring, while you leaf through a novel. This is homework. The goal of your reading is to understand what makes this genre popular with readers. You will want to consider:

• average length
• characters: how many, point of view, internalised or externalised treatment of feelings
• structure: three-act structure?, rise and fall of tension, linear or non-linear character development
• pace: slow, fast, ratio of action to description

There are many other things you could analyse, including voice or writing style.

Internalise

The second stage of your research is to internalise some of the elements you’ve noted in the genre you’re writing. This is a fine line. I’m not suggesting you become a copycat writer but if the majority of books within a genre follow certain conventions, there is probably a good reason for it. The reader will be looking for specific components in a romance or superhero story. If you haven’t already come across Blake Synder’s Save the Cat, have a read. He does an excellent job of analysing genres. You must bring your own voice, writing style and creativity to your work, but it can help to have an idea of what works and what doesn’t as you write, critique and edit your writing.

Write first

This is where many fiction writers find themselves. That story that came to you? You wrote it and now you want to market it.

Feedback

My first piece of advice is to be open to feedback. You may feel passionately that this story has to be told, or that you’ve given everything you can in the writing of it, but if it’s not resonating with others, something has to change. There are several ways of getting feedback:

• critique groups
• writers’ organisations
• beta readers
• employing an editor

Reverse engineer

The second thing you can do is reverse engineer the marketing process. If you didn’t do your research first, it’s not too late. Find as many books out there which are similar to your work and read them. Figure out what makes them work or not, who reads them, and why. Then apply this checklist to your own manuscript. You may find you want to go back to your manuscript and tweak a few things.

Whether you begin your book by researching or writing, what I’m saying is this: in order to stand the greatest chance of selling your book, find out what readers enjoy and do your best to create it – in our own way.