One of the things I do, even in editing, is google the topic I am working on and see who is saying what about it. Then I check out who seems to be reading and sharing what is written – retweeting it, facebooking it, whatever. I look at blog comments. I visit organization websites that provide similar resources or solves the problem I am writing about and see who attends their workshops or conferences. I look to see who they say they are providing their services for. Then I make a list of those people. I categorize them. I cross out the ones that don’t exactly fit my core audience – or maybe I leave them as my secondary audience.
One of my mentors told me that once I discover the simplest composite of my audience, I need to narrow it down to one single person, find a suitable visual image, print it out, and tape it to my computer or somewhere in my eye’s view while I write or edit. I thought this idea was genius.
From “So They Say You Should Write A Book” by Jevon Bolden
