Why Writers Need To Choose Their Audience, Not the Other Way Around

Who are you writing for?

Are you sure?

It seems like a simple question, but it’s not. There are a lot of ways to answer that question incorrectly. And answering it incorrectly, or not answering it at all, is the primary reason why a writer’s audience doesn’t grow.

Despite conventional wisdom, you can’t just write and let your audience choose you. You need to choose them. One by one if you have to.

In this, my sixth post on writing, exclusively for Medium, I’ll talk about why you should define and choose your audience, the five mistakes writers make when choosing, and how you hopefully turn one reader into a million.

Oh, here are the previous five writing-focused posts, which you don’t need to read, but my thinking here is that the titles will give you an idea of the path that brought us here today:

• How I Got a Million Readers and 100K Followers
• How My Anti-SEO Writing Strategy Is Working
• I Write Professionally, Here’s Why I Never Respond to Criticism
• We Need To Keep Human Writing Human
• 6 Ways I Make My Writing “More Human” — It Has Nothing To Do With Tips & Tricks

Let’s think about who you’re writing for and talk through building your audience.