Learn What Your Audience Wants -- Ask

Some times the obvious path isn't the one that a writer will select when they write their book. I met a number of these people last week at the writers conference. Some situation has inspired them to write a book (whether fiction or nonfiction) and they have pursued this dream and written all or part of their book project. Now they are trying to figure out what they perceive as the next step: find a publisher or a literary agent. Yet their project isn't focused on the needs or wants of the audience (their readers). Instead their work was created from inspiration. They never thought to ask the audience what they want, then create a product to meet the need. If you want to create a bunch of material which languishes in your desk drawer or file folder, then take the inspiration method. Instead if you want to write something which will scratch the needs of the audience, then ask them.

One of the valuable results of teleseminars and ask campaigns is the creator learns what the audience wants. Later today I will be interviewing Susan Driscoll, president and CEO of iUniverse in a live teleseminar. If you happen to be reading this post after the event, please go ahead and register as you will be notified of the replay and have the ability to download it to your computer or iPod. I've notified a number of people about this event and iUniverse has used several means to notify the audience about this event. I just checked my askdatabase account which collects and sorts the information for the event and found over 300 questions. It will be impossible to answer these questions during the 90–minute seminar so I will be looking for themes of questions to attempt and answer the majority of the concerns for the audience. Yet from these questions, I know what the audience is expecting and wants from the session. Asking the question has eliminated any doubts or guesswork.

There are many new ways to learn about electronic marketing. If you'd like to see where you are in this area of the market and receive a quick, FREE evaluation, then I'd encourage you to take this Electronic Marketing Survey. It could be one of the most important things you do for your own writing life.

I'm eager to learn about self-publishing and iUniverse later today. I hope to see you there.