Target Audience

I don't know in demographic terms. I think about it in terms of genre and interests. I assume my audience will be those who like fantasy mysteries (and possibly some who mainly read mysteries, but aren't against fantasy elements). It may have some appeal to conspiracy theorists and urban legend fans.

It won't appeal to those who want strong romantic elements in their urban fantasy. It also doesn't feature vampires or werewolves.

So if I were published, I'd look at mystery blogs, urban legend groups, etc. The answer may be the complete reverse for someone else's urban fantasy.

This might sound like a trite answer, but my target audience is fans of Urban Fantasy. I can't really break it down much more than that. I know my readers ages are anywhere from thirteen to seventy-two (if not older). I know my readers are also fans of SF, fantasy, romance, literary fiction, horror, erotica, suspense, thrillers, YA..... I suspected my books would appeal more to women, but I have quite a few amazing male fans, as well.

UF fans are a pretty large and diverse group.

My books would appeal to fans of LA Banks and Charlaine Harris in that they feature a diverse cast and are set in the South. If a reader likes AA folklore and the like,I'm the one for them!

I thought about this topic some when I started putting together my query letter. It's hard to peg down.

If pushed, I'd imagine that my urban fantasy fans would be conspiracy theorists, people who swear, goofballs, hot dweebs, and housewives with expendable income. Other than that I have no clue.

Ideally my target audience would be any adult with a sense of humor.

Unfortunately, my answer is "me and people similar to me." The urban fantasy I've written is something I hope will appeal to a broader group, but I ultimately wrote it for myself.

The question of target audience is a good one. There's unquestionably a large segment of urban fantasy that is paranormal romance targeting women. I'm told there is a significant segment of hardboiled mysteries (though only Jim Butcher comes to mind, and he's not really hardboiled). Then there's a decent group of books with a broader appeal (Patricia Briggs and company) though I feel like those are usually marketed to women.

Most of the people I know who are Urban Fantasy fans are professionals who get too much tech at work so they shy away from sci fi but still want a modern feel with extras (supernatural or paranormal). But the demagraphics are really based on the author/series rather then the genre.

I am my target audience.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I am my target audience.

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This. I write what I like to read.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I am my target audience.

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Ditto and double-down.

Well, can't really write without imagining a reader, so my target audience is even more fictional than the story

ChaosTitan said:

UF fans are a pretty large and diverse group.

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This. I find that many UF fans read a lot of different things.

I also find that many people read UF and have no idea they are reading UF. They just pick up whatever looks interesting on the New Release table and never go to the Fantasy section. My niece reads Vampire Diaries, Twilight, Sookie, etc but she has no idea she's reading UF. She's just picking up books that look interesting and they're right in front of her.

She just thinks she's reading. And she's right. Obviously, we'd prefer she knew what she was reading so she'd actually go to the section to find more that don't make it to the table but she's not so different from many other people.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I am my target audience.

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QFT

I write urban fantasy because that's what I prefer to read. I actually can't stand most "high" or "sword and sorcery" fantasy, although my friends all swear by it. So I just write books that I would want to read, and hope I'm not the only person in the world with the same tastes

tlbodine said:

QFT

I write urban fantasy because that's what I prefer to read. I actually can't stand most "high" or "sword and sorcery" fantasy, although my friends all swear by it. So I just write books that I would want to read, and hope I'm not the only person in the world with the same tastes

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I'm the same.

I actually started writing because while I found books like what I wanted to read, I could never find a book that was exactly what I wanted to read.

Yttar

Hrm. I love sword and sworcery. I just don't read it quite as much as I used to. Once I started reading UF, I was hooked. Though I do still occasionally reread my old DragonLance books, or pick up the latest George R.R. Martin, etc.

Though people exactly like you are part of your audience, it's limiting to think that's the only audience. Some of the groups I think might like my book aren't like me. I'll take that into account if I get the book published, because otherwise, I'm missing chucks of the potential audience.

I went to a public appearance of Jim Butcher in Lexington KY this summer. I was astonished at the demographic that appeared there. Or rather, the lack of demographic. I saw college kids, I saw young mothers, I saw teenagers (including my own son, who is seventeen), I saw men in business suits and women in hippy skirts. I saw middle aged women like myself and my sister (who went with me as well). I saw Hell's Angels and even sat and talked to a former nun.

I stood in line for an hour to speak to him and get his autograph. The couple who were standing in line in front of me were a young man of maybe twenty, and his great grandmother, who couldn't stand up without the aid of a walking frame; she was more demonstrably enthused about meeting Butcher than her great grandson.

The people who are your audience are the people who are attracted to your kind of story. I don't think there's a demographic, not the way the Madison Avenue types want to define it.

Stephen King described something that I had been using for years before I read his description: an Ideal Reader. Maybe it's yourself, as others have mentioned in this thread. For me, I write for my children. I know their tastes (which is/are very similar to my own), and my writing is aimed at them.

I got the ideal reaction, the payoff, just the other day. My youngest child (the above-mentioned seventeen-year-old) read my story the other day, for the first time (he had been holding off until I had finished the second draft). He finished the story, looked at me and said, in tones of awe, "I can't get my head around the idea that my own mom sat here in the living room all these months, right in front of me, and wrote this terrific story!"

Hell, I don't need the money. I don't need an agent or the praise of the public. I got my payoff right then and there, in my son's response.

The 18-34 year olds

I don't know much about urban fantasy myself, though I'd like to learn a bit more . . . but, if this were me wanting to know the demographics, I'd contact authors who I knew wrote in the genre to find out the ages.

Now, if you have a demographic description of your reader, there are ways to find out which equipment they use and when they use it. That might be a start to build a promotional campaign.

epublishabook said:

Now, if you have a demographic description of your reader, there are ways to find out which equipment they use and when they use it. That might be a start to build a promotional campaign.

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It might be, sure, but what use it will be is IMO pretty debatable, especially for the commercially published.

I suppose for the self-e-pubbed it could be helpful to know, but only in terms of "I sell a lot more books on Kindle than Nook so maybe I should try to offer some sort of discount on Amazon," but I'm not sure you're allowed to do that? I know Amazon has some sort of low price matching thing.

How do you see that information being used?


I just don't think demographics are really important when it comes to fiction genres, and I think UF is one of those. As has been mentioned already, UF has readers across all sorts of ages and genders and whatever else. Demographics matter for NF (like, a book on making baby food is clearly aimed at mothers of children under three, or whatever).

But audiences for fiction tend to be broad; even genres like romance which are pretty female-centric have a broad audience within that group, since anyone from teens to septuagenarians read romance. Some married, some not, some mothers, some not, some wealthy some not, etc. etc.

Urban fantasy fans? Fans of speculative fiction?

Readers who like what I like?

I say fans of "genre fiction," generally. Because UF tends to travel that intersection between mystery, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and action more than any other "genre." So people who read one or more of those tend to like UF.

/two cents