Target markets

At work, I spend a lot of time thinking about target markets. These days I edit a mass-market magazine and my target market is young mums and single women, then nannas. I slip little jokes into craft stories so they will feel that the person on the other side of the magazine wants them to have a smile on their face as they contemplate whether or not they have enough energy to embroider anything this year, or whether they should just turn back to the food pages. As my first editor used to tell me, 'Never underestimate a mass market audience. They're usually not thick, though they may be drunk. God knows I am by the time I get home.' You can tell our offerings because they have bright pictures on the cover and names about homes, families, gardens and food, including adjectives like beautiful, delicious and stylish.

Back in the days when there was more money in print, I worked in news mags. We had a different target audience, and rather than inserting a joke to make your audience feel familiar, we were more likely to insert a pertinent reference (although very occasionally there was a chance to have a comedic pertinent reference, happy days!) This worked though, because the audience was either someone who would nod at the reference and sagely say 'Ah yes, I can see the parallels ...' or a student who would say 'Ooh! I want to learn more about that other thing so I can see how it fits in.' Both of them were made happy by this. These mags had Serious Photographs, or Clever Illustrations on the cover, and names including words such as finance, economics, bulletin, news and journal.

Further back in time, we helped out our target audiences in bookworld with covers. If you wanted something that said 'I'm terribly serious, probably studying formal logic' you would look for our offerings with stylised photographic covers and sophisticated typography and a line of understated support from someone like Salman Rushdie. If you wanted something that said, 'This is not my thinking time!' you looked for something with a lively illustration, loose typography in pink, green or Tiffany blue, and an effusive blurb from Helen Fielding.

The reason that I mention this is that there are few markers for target market in fandom. We tend to do our best in the limited opportunities we have. Warnings are a major trick: Dark fic, NC17 loads of porn, character death, heavily political, Abuse issues ... As a community, fanfiction is also pretty good at leading people in the right direction with our summaries and author notes, where it's not uncommon to read slightly spoilery material such as: full of fluff, considerable numbers of awful puns, significant heartbreak, contains mpreg and I am unashamed!

But for all this, there is little to guide a reader when you compare this medium to print. This sometimes leads to great unintentional comedy in reviews, as the wrong person reads your fic (the 'this fic would be improved by dropping the text speak you use with your young friends' person who read For the Public Good is still my favourite). Some people aren't your target market, and that's fine -- I'm not a lot of people's target market, either. For a start, I'm not really keen on porn, so I have to read a lot with my eyes closed. There's nothing wrong with that -- in fact I am often charmed and delighted when I find that a story resonates deeply with me despite being porny, and when someone who is very much not my target market nevertheless connects with a story of mine.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that while I did have a fit of giggles at the review I received today on ffnet that told me the reader had enjoyed a story 'Even if the chapters were REALLY REALLY long!', I also wanted to give the reviewer a big hug for not running away when he or she saw how long that scroll bar was. Bless!

Target markets

At work, I spend a lot of time thinking about target markets. These days I edit a mass-market magazine and my target market is young mums and single women, then nannas. I slip little jokes into craft stories so they will feel that the person on the other side of the magazine wants them to have a smile on their face as they contemplate whether or not they have enough energy to embroider anything this year, or whether they should just turn back to the food pages. As my first editor used to tell me, 'Never underestimate a mass market audience. They're usually not thick, though they may be drunk. God knows I am by the time I get home.' You can tell our offerings because they have bright pictures on the cover and names about homes, families, gardens and food, including adjectives like beautiful, delicious and stylish.

Back in the days when there was more money in print, I worked in news mags. We had a different target audience, and rather than inserting a joke to make your audience feel familiar, we were more likely to insert a pertinent reference (although very occasionally there was a chance to have a comedic pertinent reference, happy days!) This worked though, because the audience was either someone who would nod at the reference and sagely say 'Ah yes, I can see the parallels ...' or a student who would say 'Ooh! I want to learn more about that other thing so I can see how it fits in.' Both of them were made happy by this. These mags had Serious Photographs, or Clever Illustrations on the cover, and names including words such as finance, economics, bulletin, news and journal.

Further back in time, we helped out our target audiences in bookworld with covers. If you wanted something that said 'I'm terribly serious, probably studying formal logic' you would look for our offerings with stylised photographic covers and sophisticated typography and a line of understated support from someone like Salman Rushdie. If you wanted something that said, 'This is not my thinking time!' you looked for something with a lively illustration, loose typography in pink, green or Tiffany blue, and an effusive blurb from Helen Fielding.

The reason that I mention this is that there are few markers for target market in fandom. We tend to do our best in the limited opportunities we have. Warnings are a major trick: Dark fic, NC17 loads of porn, character death, heavily political, Abuse issues ... As a community, fanfiction is also pretty good at leading people in the right direction with our summaries and author notes, where it's not uncommon to read slightly spoilery material such as: full of fluff, considerable numbers of awful puns, significant heartbreak, contains mpreg and I am unashamed!

But for all this, there is little to guide a reader when you compare this medium to print. This sometimes leads to great unintentional comedy in reviews, as the wrong person reads your fic (the 'this fic would be improved by dropping the text speak you use with your young friends' person who read For the Public Good is still my favourite). Some people aren't your target market, and that's fine -- I'm not a lot of people's target market, either. For a start, I'm not really keen on porn, so I have to read a lot with my eyes closed. There's nothing wrong with that -- in fact I am often charmed and delighted when I find that a story resonates deeply with me despite being porny, and when someone who is very much not my target market nevertheless connects with a story of mine.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that while I did have a fit of giggles at the review I received today on ffnet that told me the reader had enjoyed a story 'Even if the chapters were REALLY REALLY long!', I also wanted to give the reviewer a big hug for not running away when he or she saw how long that scroll bar was. Bless!