Hello Conspirators!

In this week’s episode we ask the crucial question: “Is Your Marketing Hitting Your Mark?”

Every spy knows the cardinal rule: know your target before you make contact. For authors it’s the same- know your “ideal reader” before you market. Yet most authors are running blind marketing ops, shooting arrows into the dark and wondering why they’re not hitting their mark. Today, we’re going undercover to discover who your real readers are—and it might surprise you.”

MISSION BRIEFING: THE AUDIENCE INTELLIGENCE PROBLEM

The False Intelligence Crisis

– Why 90% of authors are marketing to the wrong audience- okay so this might not be an exact number, but scary enough, its probably actually higher than lower.

– The difference between your “assumed audience” (who you think reads your books) vs. your “actual audience” (who actually buys and loves them)

Spy Insight: Like intelligence agencies, authors often suffer from confirmation bias—seeing only the data that supports what they already believe

The Cost of Bad Intel

– Wasted marketing budget and time

– Low engagement and conversion rates- which can compound to hurt you with algorithms

– Books that never find their true tribe, and are further inhibited by bad reviews from targeting the wrong readers.

Mission Objective: Conduct proper audience reconnaissance to identify your real target

OPERATION: AUDIENCE RECONNAISSANCE

Phase 1: Analyze Your Current Intelligence

Action Step: Review your existing reader data from multiple sources:

• Amazon reviews (not just 5-stars—read the 3-4 star reviews for honest insights) For the extra brave read the 1-2 star reviews to pin point who you have maybe been targeting that ISNT your ideal reader, and who you need to stop marketing to.

Side Note: If you’re just getting started DO NOT include friends and family who probably don’t fit your “ideal reader” and who just wanted to support you. They will skew your target and confuse your marketing avatar!

• Direct reader emails and messages
• Social media comments and engagement patterns
• Newsletter open rates and click patterns by content type- take note of who is actually excited to engage your content, and if there are any themes in which kinds of content or content subjects etc get the most engagement.

Phase 2: The Reader Autopsy

• Study readers who have proven they already love your work

Deep Dive Exercise: For your top 10 most engaged readers, research:

  – What other books they review/recommend

  – What problems they discuss online

  – What language they use to describe books like yours (what do they see as selling points?)

  – What time of day/week they’re most active

Phase 3: The Assumption Assassination

Critical Exercise: Write down 5 assumptions about your audience

• Challenge each one with actual data

Spy Insight: The most dangerous assumptions are the ones that feel obviously true. Ie YA Fantasy books are mostly read by young adult readers (14-17 years old). FALSE! Women in their 30s with disposable income that try to avoid excess violence or spice make up a HUGE portion of YA Fantasy readership!

Immediate Action: Create a “Reader Intelligence File” – a document where you collect real reader data, not assumptions

CONSTRUCTING YOUR READER AVATAR: OPERATION PERFECT TARGET

Beyond Demographics: Psychographic Profiling

Stop thinking “35-year-old women” and start thinking “people who feel X and want Y”

When it comes to readers, their why matters. Why do they read? Why do they read the types of books they go for?

Are they looking to live vicariously through a character who goes on a crazy adventure because their life is mundane? Do they love to enter into an aesthetically beautiful period romance because they long for the simplicity and beauty and slower pace life of a time long past? Do they feel safer experiencing romance in a book than in real life? Are they adrenaline junkies who love to be scared? Do they work boring day jobs, and love the brain tease of a good whodunit? You hopefully get my point, even if I didn’t hit on your genre.

The Reader Avatar Framework:

  – Core Desire: What do they desperately want?

  – Core Fear: What keeps them up at night?

  – Secret Shame: What do they not want others to know?

  – Daily Reality: What does a typical day look like? What is it lacking that they might be looking for in a book?

  – Language Patterns: How do they actually talk about their problems?

Bonus for the nerds out there: Once you take a good close look at this, figure out their enneagram number and use that to figure out their core motivation behind decision making, and use that as a part of your marketing strategy!

Basically you want to create an entire character just like you would for your books. What is their backstory, and where do they want to go in their reading life, and WHY?

The One-Reader Rule

– Why marketing to “everyone who might like this” fails

– How to write marketing copy as if speaking to one specific person

– You want the right reader to immediately think you are talking directly to them and this is their book!

– BUT you also want to alienate the wrong readers. You WANT them to immediately recognize you aren’t talking to them- this book isn’t going to be their cuppa tea, and to move on. Most authors don’t approach marketing this way. And it’s hurting them.

Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation with someone, about something kind of personal, or inside jokes etc, and you have someone else just walk up and awkwardly stand there, and not get it, but you don’t want to be rude so you just let them stand there and its weird for everyone. Rather, you want for those awkward loiterers who aren’t in on the conversation to recognize that and move on, so you can have deeper connection and relationships with your ideal readers.

Action Step: Give your avatar an allias: name and photo – make them real in your mind. This is a great time to play around with AI. I recommend claude for creating ideal reader avatars, and if you’re really struggling to get started bc you haven’t published yet, or don’t have enough reader data to go on, you can tell claude about your book and maybe some comp titles, and ask claude to help you figure out who your ideal readers really are. Make a file, that you can update and add to. A dossier if you will, have AI create a photo of your person to put a face with the name. Have fun with this! But take is seriously. It will change your marketing. This is the person you will be conversing with in all of your copywriting.

**The Avatar Validation Test**

– How to test if your avatar is accurate (not just aspirational)

                  The Prediction Test:

• Can you accurately predict what other books your avatar would love? Go check if your actual readers are reviewing/recommending those same books
  • Can you guess what problems they discuss in Facebook groups or Reddit threads? Go lurk and verify

The Language Mirror Test:

• Write down how you think your avatar talks about their problem
  • Then find real conversations (reviews, forums, social media) and see if the language actually matches
  • If your avatar uses “self-care” but real readers say “me-time,” you’re off target
  • This can really help you figure out what key words to use in your copy

The Platform Validation:

• If you think your avatar hangs out on Instagram, but your actual engaged readers are all coming from BookBub or Goodreads, your avatar is wrong
  • Track where your real sales and engagement actually come from, not where you wish they came from

The Content Response Test:

• Create content specifically for your avatar’s supposed interests/problems
  • If engagement is crickets, your avatar might be fictional
  • Real avatars respond to content that speaks to their actual needs

The Peer Review Method:

• Look at authors whose readers overlap with yours
  • Do their reader comments/reviews sound like your avatar would talk?
  • If there’s a mismatch, investigate further

The Time/Behavior Check:

• If your avatar is “busy working moms” but your highest engagement happens at 2 PM on weekdays, something’s off
  • Real avatars leave digital footprints that match their supposed lifestyle

The Problem Hierarchy Test:

• Rank what you think are your avatar’s top 5 problems
  • Then look at what your actual readers complain about or seek solutions for
  • If romance readers are talking about book boyfriends but your avatar focuses on “strong female characters,” you’re missing the mark

Checkpoint: Can you predict what other books your avatar loves? If not, dig deeper. This is an avatar that is going to sharpen in focus over time- the picture might start out blury, but hopefully this list gives you some ideas of things to pay attention to, so that you can make a mental note to update your avatar as you go.

Infiltration Strategy: Quality Over Quantity

– Why being everywhere is the enemy of being effective

The 3-Platform Rule: Master presence in 3 places rather than mediocre presence in 10

Platform Selection Criteria:

• Where your avatar naturally gathers
  • Where you can provide consistent value
  • Where the platform mechanics favor your content style

Access and Entry Points

• How to join communities without being the obvious “outsider with an agenda”
  • The Value-First Protocol: Contribute before you promote AKA Give- Give- Ask.
  • Building genuine relationships vs. broadcasting to strangers

DEBRIEF: INTELLIGENCE-BASED MARKETING TRANSFORMATION

The Strategic Shift

– From “spray and pray” to surgical precision

This foundationally changes everything: your content creation, platform choice, messaging, timing, even what you may choose to include in future books!

The Compound Interest Effect: Why better targeting creates exponential results over time.

Quality grows into high value quantity over time, with compound “interest” *wink wink* as super fans create more fans and find new readers for you, via word of mouth FREE advertising. You just have to do the work up front to find those right readers, and cultivate the super fan relationships.

Your Mission Should You Choose to Accept it:

1. Intelligence Audit: Spend 2 hours reviewing actual reader data (from YOUR actual readers. If you’re not published yet, then research the audiences of your closest comp titles)

2. Avatar Construction: Create one detailed reader avatar with name, photo, and complete profile- start a file that you will continue to hone.

3. Location Reconnaissance: Identify the top 3 platforms where your avatar actually spends time. How does that compare to what you’ve been investing in?

4. Initial Contact Protocol: If your list of platforms you’ve been trying to use, didn’t match where your reader is hanging out, Join one new community where your avatar gathers and spend a week just observing and providing value to introduce yourself to the community. Hold off on any promo for a minute.

Remember the foundation of ALL of your marketing, is who you are talking to, and WHY they would want to hear from you.

See you all next Thursday where now that we have our ideal reader avatar, we will talk about the next aspect of author marketing, your Author Allias. AKA, branding!

Have a great weekend!

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