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

Joe Procopio’s argument is that audience growth stalls when a writer never decides who the writing is for. Waiting to be found doesn’t work. You pick your readers, one at a time if you have to.

He lays it out as five mistakes, worst first. Writing only for yourself is fine as a starting point, since every writer is their own first reader, but an audience of one doesn’t grow. Going too narrow is his own story: he used to write for entrepreneurs, found there weren’t enough of them, and widened to the much larger group of people who lead, build and solve problems at work, with entrepreneurs as one part of it. Going too broad is the opposite error. His readers also follow sports and music, but those interests belong in the writing as flavour, the odd obscure reference, rather than as whole posts.

The last two are smaller. Drifting away from your audience happens to everyone; he admits the writing series this post belongs to is a detour that will cost him subscribers, and that he can afford it only because the audience already exists. Not listening is the one that compounds. Readers tell you what they want, if only by what they skip, so open direct channels, answer comments, and watch which posts over- or under-perform. His close: the relationship with your audience is the most valuable thing a writer has.