week 4 question

Find key research (2–3 sources) about your target audience based on your self-proclaimed writing form and genre. A helpful list is provided in Additional Support, but you may wish to begin with The Book Industry Study Group (BISG). For example, if you write young adult fantasy fiction, then you should present key research relating to this audience, along with the source of the research. Additionally, revisit your selected publisher, editor, or agent, and discuss how that agent represents the particular genre related to your work. Your classmates will then provide feedback regarding this research.

In your responses to classmates, provide feedback regarding others’ research. Questions to consider include:

Does the student list the specific source of the research, and does it seem to be a reliable source?

Why is this particular audience drawn to the genre in question?

Based on this research, what other audiences might be drawn to the genre?

Is this same audience drawn to other genres?

To complete this assignment, review the Discussion Rubric document.

I write in young adult romance.

Peer response 1:

I personally love to read Historical Romance, but I soon realized upon researching that the audience for this genre is far more sparse than other genre’s. Typically people view them as boring, or when they do pick it up they expect something exceptionally well written. Likewise, historical fiction has multiple subgenre’s that attract different people’s attention, and not all who enjoy historical fiction would enjoy historical romance. What is clear is a broad audience of historical romance readers are women.

Frances Cabello, a historical fiction writer, delves into the results of her analysis of readers of the genre. The primary audience was women between the ages of 45 and 60, and were primarily women. Next she discovered that most were from the United States ( Cabello, 2016). What is brought up by Cabello is that if you are in a smaller genre it is imperative for you to know in precise detail who is interested in your book and genre. She uses facebook, twitter, and google analytics to show what demographics visit and like her author pages.

What is interesting, and is very important and relevant to me, is that the most popular era of historical fiction is that set in the 19th century, comprising 45.5% of a surveyed group of historical fiction readers (Tod, 2013). This reflects the trend in the genre, historical romances set in the 19th century, particularly in the Regency era–which is what my book is exactly. Likewise, Tod points out that it is also the area of the genre publishers are gravitating too to reflect the trends of the consumers. Square space further defined my target audience to a much more specific level in a large scale survey (that admittedly focused simply on romance fiction, but it still is relevant to some degree). They found that the primary age is females between 30-54 and read about 1 book per week, compared to the average American who reads only 5 per year. The genre is represented by college educated women of which 86% are in a couple (Squarespace, 2013).

The literary agency I am using as a reference is D4EO agency, specifically Pam Victorio. The genre she most represents is historical fiction, but likewise focuses on children’s literature and other genre fiction almost as often. Therefore, she does represent my specific genre and has a particular interest in it, but may not always gravitate towards it–as it is not the sole genre she represents.

Peer response 2:

My genre is Women’s Fiction. My book is that of short stories and poems and appeals greatly to this audience. It is said that “women’s fiction comprises about 40 percent (or a little more) of all the adult popular fiction that is sold in the United States. This is approximately 60 percent of all adult popular fiction paperbacks sold. This information comes from a recent Gallup Poll. This means that women’s fiction is a $24 billion dollar industry” (1). This genre appeals to women because it includes stories that appeal to them; “stories of every day life and events centered around friends and family, tragedy, the search for happiness, strong women that overcome obstacles, mature love and loss, relationships, family secrets, motherhood and dysfunctional relationships” (2).

I researched my purposed agent, Ms Carol Guess, who works for Black Lawrence Publishing. She’s an odd duck and writes short stories and poems that cover the spectrum of genres- which is odd. To quote her, “I don’t like thinking of writing as writing, and I don’t believe really in the hype about rules, about how and who, about advice, about try this or that. I think some people have very loud radios, and I’m one of them, and if we don’t record the songs in our heads, we go crazy. If you don’t walk a dog, it chews up your shoes; it barks like a mad thing; it jumps all over the furniture. I mean the radio is a dog, too, this feral thing we try to tame.” (3). The more I read about her, the more drawn to her I become. She’s wacky but cool, she’s open minded but professional. She writes stories with bizarre titles but she teaches English at a university. She’s all about women and being yourself and I love that. Does my work fit in with her? I can only hope but I think it does. Her biography doesn’t say she publishes Women’s Fiction but it doesn’t say she doesn’t so I feel like, based on what information I find, she’s a good candidate.

 

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