How Do I Find My Book’s Target Audience?

[This article first appeared in the May/June 2026 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.]

It’s the number one question I’m asked when I speak at writing conferences, and it’s a pivotal question for authors today. Authors understand, much to their chagrin, that they are expected to promote their books. You can do it! The trick is to start with identifying your target audience.  

Those who want, need, and desire your book are your target audience. If you know who your audience is, where they learn about books, and where they buy books, you can successfully promote to them and sell books! Focus your promotion efforts in those identified areas to sell books and effectively manage your budget and your precious time.  

You can get your book in the hands of your readers in three easy steps.

The broad book genres are: children, young adult, nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Try to also identify some genre subcategories that are a good fit for your book. Amazon ranks bestselling books by category and subcategory. Go to your book’s category (genre) and search the other books in that category. Do their subcategories make sense for your book, too? For example, my first book is titled It Gets Easier! … And Other Lies We Tell New Mothers. It falls into the nonfiction genre. Through research of comparative titles, I identified the other genre subcategories for my book to include: parenting, motherhood, humor, self-help, how-to, and women’s issues. Take some time to research the genre and sub-genres of your book.

You may think that everyone is a possible buyer for your book. You would be wrong! Your book’s target audience is a very specific group of people. It’s your job to imagine who those readers are and to describe them in a few words.

You probably think that my target audience would be easy identify. It’s right there in the title, right? It Gets Easier! …  And Other Lies We Tell New Mothers. My target audience must be mothers. Nope! “Mothers” is actually too broad a target audience for my book.  

I needed to decide on a very specific sub-group of mothers for my target market. The more specific you can make your target audience, the easier it will be to find out where your readers discover books so that you can promote and sell to them in those places. I decided that my target audience was “new moms”—not pregnant moms, not moms of preschoolers, toddlers, or teenagers but the very specific category of readers and book buyers that is “new moms.”   

Consider the following questions to help you decide on the specific, target audience for your book.  

To promote your book effectively you simply cannot focus on everytype of reader who may love your book. It’s not possible but more importantly, it’s not the best use of your precious time or money.

Once you have identified your specific target audience and genre you can start to look for where your audience is in the book buying world. The goal is to prepare a list of places to promote your book where your target audience is and where they buy books.

Let’s say your target audience is “new moms” for a nonfiction, humorous, how-to guide.  

You can now start to consider where “new moms” learn about and purchase books.   

New moms spend a lot of time in pediatric waiting rooms where parenting magazines abound. Placing my book in an ad or with a book review spot in a parenting magazine would be a great place to connect with my book-buying audience. “New mom” topics are also discussed on parenting websites. I could place ads on their sites or suggest an interview or offer a post of “new mom tips” to reach those book buyers. “New moms” also listen toparenting podcasts.  Offering myself as a guest or spending ad dollars on a podcast could be a great way to connect with my book-buying audience.   

Are you starting to see the power in identifying your target audience and your genre?  

Sometimes, the book’s specific genre alone can lead to a specific target audience.  

For example, let’s say your book is a fiction, romance book. Through your research you determine that your book has subcategories as well. You determine your book genre is “billionaire werewolf romantasy” (a real genre).

The book buyers who love this type of book are going to be easy to identify because the genre is so specific and descriptive. Maybe they hang out online on sites that discuss the genre because they love werewolf, romance,and fantasy books so much. Perhaps they attend trade shows (like Comic-Con) where they can buy books of this genre, meet the authors of this genre, and meet other fans of this genre.   

A great way to find your target audience for a book with a specialized genre is through a simple online search. Simply type in “billionaire werewolf romantasy book genre” and lots of sites pop up, places where your target market hangs out and finds out about books.  

Now you know where to promote! Would it make sense, for example, to promote your romantasy book in a parenting magazine when you just learned that the billionaire werewolf romantasy book buyers learn about new books through cons, podcasts, and specialty websites? Of course not. You can now focus your energy, time, and money in places where you know your book-buying audience is!

Once you have done your research and discovered where your target audience learns about books and buys books, it’s time to promote your book. Below is a general outline of possible places for you to promote your book.   

Select the most promising options from your research and evaluate your promotion results. Is the promotion the right fit for your book? If your book sales improve as the result of a promotion, you have found your audience. Continue to promote there. If not, move on to the next promotion opportunity that you have identified.  

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You can do right by your book, authors! Start successful book promotion by identifying your target audience and your genre. Use the tools explained here to find out where book buyers today are learning aboutand buying books like yours. Then, go get ’um.