Start with Your Ideal Audience: Insights from Janyre Tromp

Award-winning author and editor Janyre Tromp joins the podcast for a deep dive into one of the most vital topics for writers: understanding your ideal audience. Drawing from her experience as both a traditionally and independently published author (as well as an editor and marketing expert), Janyre shares why zeroing in on your target audience—specifically your ideal reader—is essential for every writing project, whether you’re working on fiction, nonfiction, essays, or poetry.

Together, Janyre and I explore the difference between demographics and psychographics; how narrowing your audience isn’t about limiting your reach but about making real, meaningful connections; and practical ways to discover and engage the people who will resonate most with your work.

We also discuss common author pitfalls, tips for testing your ideas before you write that book-length manuscript, and how to grow your platform authentically—without burning out.

Find out why knowing your audience isn’t just a marketing move—it’s at the heart of effective, rewarding writing.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The difference between demographics and psychographics (and why felt needs matter most)
• How to use “real people” as your audience guide—beyond generic market profiles
• Why writing purely from your own perspective may miss your target audience (and what to do about it)
• Practical strategies for exploring and validating your audience—before you write the whole book
• The value and methods of “testing” your message on social media, in articles, or through speaking
• Smart ways to use outlines, chapter summaries, and comparative titles to clarify your audience
• Why platform-building is about genuine connection, not perfection or performance
• How to balance platform work with writing—plus batching, repurposing, and self-care tips from Janyre’s own practice
• Encouragement for embracing your unique voice and message, even when life or creativity feels overwhelming

Key Moments:

• Janyre’s multi-role background: Traditional/indie publishing, editing, and marketing
• Defining your ideal audience: From broad demographics to nuanced psychographics
• How emotion—not just facts—sells books and builds connection
• The role of social media as a “testing lab” for ideas and audience resonance
• Outlining, annotating, and revising to realign with your audience
• Using comparative titles and community spaces to get to know your readers
• Overcoming perfectionism and performance pressure as you build your platform
• Grace for the process—nobody does it all, and real people connect with real people

Memorable Quotes:

“Emotion sells a book. Facts do not sell books… That’s why you see a commercial, they’re appealing to an emotion, not a fact.”

“If you want to publish a book and help people, then you have to approach your book writing from that person’s perspective and write the book that they need, not the book that you want to write.”

“Social media is this lovely little lab where you can write about stuff and get immediate gratification of whether it works or not.”

“Go find your audience wherever they are and hang out with them… If you have a conversation with them that resonates, they’ll come hang out with you elsewhere too.”

“You have a message that only you can give. Don’t be afraid to step out into that and make those connections.”

Resources:

• Join Janyre’s upcoming YPM training: Your Platform Matters (YPM)
• Learn more about Janyre Tromp: janyretromp.com and Editing Insiders
• Free Facebook group for editing questions: Editing Insiders on Facebook
• This discussion pairs nicely with “Don’t Wait to Share Your Message“

Connect & Continue the Conversation

• Email Ann: annkroeker.com/contact
• Explore free & paid offerings: annkroeker.com/everything
• Get free coaching in your inbox: annkroeker.com/connect
• Follow Janyre Tromp: @janyretromp on Instagram, LinkedIn, and (newbie!) TikTok

Meet Janyre:

Janyre Tromp is an award-winning nonfiction and fiction editor with more than 20 years of experience in acquiring and editing books for traditional publishers and Indie authors. She also has an additional 10 years of experience in book marketing. She has worked with nearly a thousand books written by new and seasoned authors. All of which makes her uniquely suited to equip authors with the tools to help them navigate the quagmire.

She adores working with writers and equipping them to make their books the best they can be. But she is also the bestselling hybrid author of myth-flavored historical suspense, including Darkness Calls the Tiger, Shadows in the Mind’s Eye, Lovely Life, and O Little Town.

You can find out more about her writing at JanyreTromp.com and her editing at www.EditingInsiders.com.

➡️ Join Your Platform Matters (YPM) to enjoy Janyre’s full training, “X Marks the Spot”: https://annkroeker.com/yourplatformmatters/

Interview with Janyre Tromp – Start with Your Ideal Audience (Rough Transcript)

Ann Kroeker [00:00:00]:
Today we are talking with award winning author and editor Janyre Tromp about why knowing your ideal audience is vital for every writing project and you’re going to get a few other insights along the way. I’m Anne Kroeker. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you’re a regular, welcome back. Today you’ve joined hundreds of established and emerging writers who are discovering ways to reach their writing goals and have fun. But by being more curious, creative and productive, you’re tuning in to the Ann Kroeker Writing Coach Podcast. This is episode 283. Start with Your Ideal Audience: Insights from Janyre Tromp

Upcoming Training with Janyre Tromp

Ann Kroeker [00:00:36]:
If you enjoy learning from Janyre as much as I think you will during this conversation, I do want to let you know up front about a training that she is going to lead in my membership community called Your Platform Matters or YPM. She’s going to lead this on October 14, 2025. If you’d like to join us, join YPM for month and then you can jump in live and be part of that conversation. Or if you’re listening after that date, you can watch the replay in that same space.

Meet Janyre

Janyre Tromp is an award winning nonfiction and fiction editor with more than 20 years of experience in acquiring and editing books for traditional publishers and indie authors. She also has an additional 10 years of experience in book marketing. She’s worked with nearly a thousand books written by both new and seasoned authors. All of which makes her uniquely suited to equip authors with the tools to help them navigate the quagmire.

Ann Kroeker [00:01:33]:
She adores working with writers and equipping them to make their books the best they can be. But she’s also the best selling hybrid author of myth flavored historical suspense including Darkness Calls, the Tiger, Shadows in the Mind’s Eye, Lovely Life, and O Little Town.

The Importance of Target Audience

Now we’re talking with Janyre about target audience. This is such a vital topic and you’re the perfect person to talk to about this because you have had to think about this from all different angles, haven’t you?

Janyre Tromp [00:02:04]:
I have. I’m such a weird animal in this industry because I’ve been, I’ve worked for traditional publishers. I’m a traditionally published author. I was an acquiring editor when I worked for the traditional publishers. I actually ran the marketing department for a while for a traditional publisher and now I’m a hybrid author and I do indie publishing as well as traditional publishing. So I kind of have this weird gamut of experience where I can look at this from so many different layers and angles. It’s one of my favorite topics to talk about. Yeah.

Ann Kroeker [00:02:40]:
Finding your ideal audience. So let’s just start at that point right there. So you’re coming at it from all these different angles and of what it means. In all those different spaces, we’ve got people who are writing fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry, everything, but probably mostly nonfiction. And so keeping that in mind—but you can speak more broadly as you wish as we have this conversation—let’s start at the basic level, which is: what do you mean by an ideal audience? Is that the same as an ideal reader? And so on. Fill us in.

Defining Ideal Audience: Demographics vs. Psychographics

Janyre Tromp [00:03:12]:
So to some extent, it is the same thing as an ideal reader. It’s just when you think of an ideal reader, it’s a person that you’re thinking about. Whereas an audience implies multiple. Multiple audience members. And so when I think about a target audience. And there’s also a difference, there’s nuance between target audience and target market. For the most part, they’re interchangeable, friends.

Janyre Tromp [00:03:39]:
Don’t worry about it. Like, target market is how you actually reach them. Like where they are in the market out there. And an audience is who the individual people are in case anybody is a nerd like me and wants to know. But a target audience basically is this person or these people that are out there that are interested in the conversation that you want to have with them. Okay. So when authors are first introduced to target audience, they often think about something. It’s a marketing term called demographics.

Janyre Tromp [00:04:11]:
Okay. Demographics are these very boring numbers and facts about people that sometimes are very important, but most often they’re very minuscule amount of the information that you actually need in order to have a conversation with somebody. Right. And so when you think of a demographic, it’s women age 35 to 65 or whatever. That’s a huge range. But, you know, when you look at that range, I hope you realize that every woman from age 35 to 65, they are not the same. They do not have the same issues. They are not looking at the same world in the same way.

Janyre Tromp [00:04:53]:
And so that kind of becomes a useless bit of information. Right. And so I often encourage my authors that I work with to think about target audience in terms of something that’s called a psychographic. Okay, psychographic. Again, it’s a marketing term. It sounds scary, but it kind of sounds like what it is. So if you pull the word apart, because we’re word nerds here. Right? So if you pull the word psychographic apart you hear psycho or not.

Janyre Tromp [00:05:21]:
That doesn’t mean crazy like psycho, but psychology, you hear psychology in there, okay? And it’s a picture, a “graphic,” of their “psychology”: psycho-graphic. So this is addressing a specific need that is inside a reader. And we call that a felt need. It’s a need that they feel. So if you think about this, your psychographic might be a women age 20 or I’m sorry, your demographic may be women age 20 to 40 with young children. That’s a demographic, okay. But again, that’s still really broad, right? That’s really, really broad. But a psychographic says women with young children who are wanting them to understand why it’s important to take care of nature.

Janyre Tromp [00:06:14]:
That’s a felt need. They have this tie to nature that they want to pass on to their children, right? And so that becomes a need. How do I pass on my love of nature to my children? And for them to see the importance of taking care of the world around us, okay? And that right there gives you a very clear picture that we’ve got moms with. And, and I might even narrow it further. Moms with kids, elementary age kids, okay, so you don’t want to do it too narrow. Moms with kids in first grade? That’s too narrow. But if you’ve got that kind of…that, that lovely little space where you have enough people in that area to be able to have a conversation with them, okay? And once you kind of have that, that place where you can identify the needs inside of that audience. So along with they want to pass down their desire, their desire to engage with and enjoy nature, I would suggest asking why, why do they want to do that? What is underneath that desire that’s inside of them? Because that understanding starts drilling down into their emotional triggers, okay? And I have to tell you right now, emotion sells a book. Facts do not sell books.

Janyre Tromp [00:07:38]:
They don’t sell anything. That’s why whenever you see a commercial on TV or anywhere else, they are appealing to an emotion, not a fact. Because that’s what sells, okay? So if you happen to write fiction, because fiction is a really hard thing to nail down felt need on. So I’m just going to pop over to those folks for a second. It may very well be that they just need an escape, that they just want to read a fun book, or they may need a safe place to release emotional energy for the little bit more difficult, darker side of things like what I write, right? So there is an audience that you can identify inside your book idea. And if you haven’t identified who that audience is, you’re gonna have a really hard time talking to them, targeting them. You’re gonna have a hard time writing the book, selling the book, marketing the book. All the things are going to fall apart unless you have that established first.

Writing for Your Audience, Not Just Yourself

Ann Kroeker [00:08:35]:
That’s good. So let’s say, though, I have somebody who wants to just get all their ideas out. Nonfiction. I want to get my ideas out. I want to make sure I’m saying what I want to say. I want to make sure I’ve got the right framework in place, and then I’ll deal with figuring out who it’s for. How would you address that?

Janyre Tromp [00:08:55]:
It is 100 percent fine to information dump at the beginning of a project. It is a hundred percent fine with that. Because sometimes you do just need to get everything out and, like, lay it all out. I am a huge fan of sticky notes. So a sticky note, like I write all my scribble, all my ideas and sticky notes, or if you want something on the computer, scalpel is fantastic. It’s SC and then Apple: Scapple, and it’s kind of freeform. Freeform has free form, kind of mind mappy type thing. You can get a big poster board and write stuff down.

Janyre Tromp [00:09:33]:
I like sticky notes because I can put them on the back of a door and then when the door is, you know, open or shut, whatever, on the back side of a door, when it’s, you know, open, you can’t see it. And I close it to move my sticky notes around. Right. So. Or you can put, you know, sticky notes on a poster board, but then you can move things around a little bit.

Ann Kroeker [00:09:54]:
And these are. This is not your people. This is the ideas in the book.

Janyre Tromp [00:09:56]:
Just the ideas of the book. Just get them out. Get them out there. But then. So unless you actually do the writing of the book from the perspective of your target audience, your book is not for the target audience. It’s for you. You have written a book for yourself, and that’s fine. That’s fine.

Janyre Tromp [00:10:16]:
But if you want to publish a book and help people, then you have to approach your book writing from that person’s perspective and write the book that they need, not the book that you want to write.

Ann Kroeker [00:10:30]:
So how is the writing coming out? If it’s meant to, let’s say, educate to some extent, to inform and they’ve got all their ideas out there, how is it not for the person they’re informing? Because I do know that there’s a reader there that they want to…

Janyre Tromp [00:10:48]:
Right. Well, this sometimes happens with the nonfiction people without them even thinking about it. So there’s some very intuitive writers out there that are very in tune with their audience. They’ve done a lot of speaking, they’ve done a lot of writing, and they know how to talk to their target audience without specifically identifying them and going through the steps of, you know, oh, they’re whatever. Because they’ve interacted with them, they’ve had conversations with them, they’ve been in the trenches with them, they know them intimately, and so they automatically write for their target target audience.

Janyre Tromp [00:11:27]:
It just happens. I still. Once you have the book written before you go back in for your first round edits, I would go through the exercise of specifically identifying who your audience is. I have people that suggest, like, making up a person that you’re writing for. So kind of a Persona. So I’m writing for Jane Smith, who is a mom with kids, elementary age. What that person ends up being is the author more often than not.

Janyre Tromp [00:11:59]:
We’re just going to be honest. And I’m an author, so I can say this because I have done it. Okay. So I suggest picking somebody you know, pick somebody you know that is in the target audience. And if you don’t know anybody in your target audience, you might back up a hot second because can you write for them if you don’t know any of them? Because you might end up writing for a caricature of this audience that you think is out there, but you haven’t interacted with them enough to know if they really need this or that or whatever. I write for. Her name is Tracy. She’s a real person.

Janyre Tromp [00:12:36]:
And so when I’m writing…And this becomes most effective in your first round edits. And this is those big global changes that you’re doing, you’re identifying. Does the flow work? Does the argument work? All these things, right? If I think, “Okay, would Tracy need this?” if I’m stuck? Because we all have our darlings that we sometimes have to cut, I’m stuck. Do I keep it? Do I let it go? “Does Tracy need this or not? Would Tracy appreciate this or not?” And the answer usually comes really easily: “Yes, it would help her.”

Janyre Tromp [00:13:13]:
“No, it would not.” And that becomes the answer of whether you keep it or not.

Ann Kroeker [00:13:17]:
Nice. Nice. Do you feel like different examples? You know, do you change your examples because you now know your audience or…

Janyre Tromp [00:13:24]:
You are, yes, dialing that in 100%. So that is the power of target audience. Let me use an illustration. Okay, so let’s imagine you’re a spy. I’m a storyteller, so we’re going to storytell. Okay, so imagine that you’re a spy, okay? You’ve received word that a contact has something you need or you have something for them. You have something for this contact out there.

Janyre Tromp [00:13:51]:
You’re going to meet them in this open air market. That is the book world, right? And your superior says she’s going to send you a photo and you say, “Nope, I got it. Why don’t you just describe them to me?” Or you know, or even worse, like, “Nope, I got. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to go find this person in this big open air market.” Are you going to find that person? Are you going to find that person in this big open air market? I highly, highly doubt it. I highly doubt it. Right. So here’s the thing.

Janyre Tromp [00:14:29]:
If you don’t know what you’re aiming for or it’s blurry or too broad, you are going to miss. You’re going to miss. You are setting yourself up to fail. It’s an easy step.

Finding and Testing Your Audience

Ann Kroeker [00:14:45]:
So this is about narrowing? When you say “being specific,” is that narrowing or is it something else?

Janyre Tromp [00:14:53]:
I hate the word narrow because then we become, then we ask how narrow? How specific should I be? You know what I’m saying? And that’s where part of getting to know your audience is so important. That’s, that is why social media is important. Social media typically does not sell books very well. What social media is is this lovely little lab where you can write about stuff and get immediate gratification of whether it works or not. Immediate, like right now. And so you can start finding the things that resonate with people that they’re looking for, that they identify with, that you, that you are qualified and capable of speaking about.

Janyre Tromp [00:15:42]:
I cannot talk to elementary school parents about nature because as much as I love nature, my kids are way older now. Not way older, but they’re old enough that I’ve kind of lost touch with that. Could have I had written that book 10 years ago? Yeah, but it’s a different, it’s…after Covid, it’s a very different world now and the approaches to everything are very different. And so I don’t feel qualified to write that anymore. Right. So it’s just this, it’s this thing of experimenting and figuring it out.

Janyre Tromp [00:16:13]:
Sometimes you can find statistics about how many people are in a certain area. And you can. So if you’re writing A book on grief. If you write a book on grief, that is way too big of a topic. If you are writing a book about. I don’t even know what something would be that would be too narrow. You know, this very, very, very, very narrow niche of, you know, you have a kid who’s dealing with a very specific disease. So I can speak to this because my daughter had a very weird medical wackadoodliness when she was 12.

Janyre Tromp [00:16:52]:
So if I wrote about the specific issue that she had, my audience would be like 2,000 people total in the world. Like, there would be nobody to read my book. Like, you have to have a decent amount of people. So if I wrote a book about helping kids who have been hospitalized for things that the medical world doesn’t understand, that’s a much bigger audience because I’ve broadened it from a specific issue to a more broad issue. Now, this specific issue over here is fantastic fodder for reaching your target audience by writing an article for that specific audience. You see what I mean? That’s another way we were talking about IPS a little while ago. So intellectual property. So that’s a way to take something that you’ve already worked on and already created, take a portion of it and use it to converse with a portion of your target audience and bring them to the larger topic and sell your book.

Ann Kroeker [00:17:57]:
So. So just to be clear, you’ve got the broad…The broadest is grief. And then your book will be something narrow within that. Helping. Helping young people navigate grief. And then you’re saying an article could be about many different sub. Sub audiences or maybe just one sub within that.

Ann Kroeker [00:18:17]:
And that’s where we can. We can try a social media post, we can try an article, we can show up on a podcast for people who are specializing in this area.

Janyre Tromp [00:18:24]:
Correct, correct. And then you can find the things that. That resonate most inside of that.

Ann Kroeker [00:18:29]:
Yes. Such a great tip. I love this. I like the testing of it and I like the idea of using this opportunity where we’re actually building a platform, which is the term that nobody loves, but it’s what they use in the industry. And it is trying to get to the right people with your message. And so you can be building your platform while testing your idea at the same time. And. Yeah, and trying to find the right people.

“X Marks the Spot”: A Deeper Dive into Target Audience

Speaking of platform, what we’re talking about today, you’re going to go into more detail with in YPM, Your Platform Matters, which is my paid membership, where I have a community of writers who are trying to build their platform. Can you give us a little preview? And then we’ll go back into the conversation here, just that. What, what are you going to go into more depth on? What are some of the outcomes they’re going to get from this training which you’re calling “X Marks the Spot.”

Janyre Tromp [00:19:16]:
So. Yes, So X marks the spot. I love that kind of visual. Because we’re looking for the treasure point. We’re looking for the people who most resonate and who will, will go buy our book, who will pay us for the work that we do. Right. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the stuff that we’ve already talked about here. What is target audience? We’re going to talk about why it’s important, which we’ve talked about a little bit here too.

Janyre Tromp [00:19:43]:
We’re going to, we’re going to get down into the nitty gritty though, too, because target audience is one of the most effective tools and also underused tools that authors have in their tool belt for the entire process. So it helps you with your writing, which we’ve talked a little bit about already. But we’ll go in more depth about how you like, specifically like, figure this out, how you edit and write your book. It is how you pitch your book so to agents, to editors, to creating your marketing copy and then how you actually sell your book and how you have conversations with your end game target audience. Because interestingly, that middle row right there is actually a separate target audience. So there’s a whole conversation because you have to pitch an agent or an editor has a different mindset than your final target audiences. Well, so we’re going to cover all three of those and then we’re going to conclude with how do you actually go find your target audience? And I’ll give you real concrete tools and tips and tricks on how you get down in there and figure out where your target target audience is hanging out and how to talk to them. Wow.

Ann Kroeker [00:20:59]:
Just the description already has…I feel like it’s been informational for people who are tuning in right now. So let’s go back into what you, you know, this, this part of the conversation we’re having now. And hopefully people who do jump in maybe just even for just a month into YPM, they pay 12 bucks, they can jump in, watch it on replay or be there live. You know, you can go into this detail that you just described, but I have still a few more questions if that’s okay.

Janyre Tromp [00:21:23]:
Absolutely. Let’s go.

Recognizing and Pivoting from the Wrong Audience

Ann Kroeker [00:21:24]:
Okay, so like, let’s just say somebody has been thinking that they were writing for an audience. How, how might they actually discover, whoa, wait a minute, it’s the wrong audience. And then what should they do when they discover that?

Janyre Tromp [00:21:39]:
So I’m going to reference back to social media. And, and actually, if you’re out speaking too, you know, the crickets in the room, when you’ve like, not quite hit exactly what you thought you were gonna hit, and you get this crickets, and you’re like, oops. Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to pivot when you have dropped the proverbial, you know, goose egg on social media than when you’ve written an entire book and then discover you’ve dropped a goose egg. And so nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to write 60, 75, 80,000 words and find out that they’ve, they’ve missed that target. And so if, if you’re playing early in the process, it’s really easy to pivot if you already have a whole book. I, one of, I, I think I referenced it earlier. Sticky notes are fantastic.

Janyre Tromp [00:22:39]:
So one of my best tools that I highly recommend all authors do, whether you write fiction or non fiction, is to write chapter summaries after you’re done. Okay, everybody who’s out there who hates outlines, breathe with me. I am going to admit something. I hate outlines. I am an editor who lives and breathes in outlines as my editorial self, as my author self. I despise them with a passion that is unparalleled to anything. Okay, I hate them. I don’t typically use them before I write. Nonfiction authors, I don’t recommend that for you necessarily, for a whole bunch of reasons.

Janyre Tromp [00:23:20]:
But my fiction authors, we have some pantsers out there, and I’m not a strict pantser, but if you write fiction, you know, hopefully, know what I mean? But what I always recommend is once you have finished writing your book, okay, you’re done writing your book, go through and write two to three sentences of a summary for each chapter. Okay? If you are a nonfiction author, I also recommend you doing like a summary of the full chapter and then one sentence summary for each header that you have in your chapter. What this does is now you have a 12ish page information about what’s going on in each of your chapters. And you can read that sucker in one sitting and you can tell when you have gotten off the beaten path, because, I don’t know, I, I mean, even the most organized people on the planet are going to go off the beaten path on occasion. And this just kind of helps you pull it back in line and figure out things like, does this help my audience? Is this the path that they should take? Because just because this path worked for me doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s actually the best path. I don’t know. I’ve done things sometimes and look back and went, gosh, I wish I would have done it this way. Instead, that person was really smart.

Testing Your Book Idea Before Going All In

Janyre Tromp [00:24:38]:
And how they did that, like, you know, use that. That’s good, you know, and so you can kind of take your book apart and rearrange it. And that’s an okay thing to do. It’s absolutely an acceptable thing to do.

Ann Kroeker [00:24:52]:
And helpful to do when you have that, that audience clarified. If you had to pivot, rearrange as needed for this new audience. If that’s the case. You mentioned having that shorter conversation. Maybe it’s an article, maybe it’s a social media post and you get the crickets. And then you’re like, okay, that didn’t. I think one social media post does not necessarily mean you’re totally off, but like, try it a few different formats, a few different places. And until you…

Ann Kroeker [00:25:18]:
Before you give up or try to find that audience anyway, Ryan Holiday in, in his book Perennial Seller, he said, before it’s a book, it should be a dinner table conversation, and then it should be an article before it’s a book. So before it’s a book, before you go all in, test it with conversations and then next with writing a full article about it. I think that aligns with what you were saying. Test it small before you go big because it’s really hard to look at your 80,000 words or 60,000 words, whatever. That would be a novel. But, you know, 55k for nonfiction and think, “Okay, now what. What do I do with this book? Do I have to revise everything?” And the answer could be yes if you didn’t have these things figured out first. Is what I’m hearing? Is that right?

Outlining for Traditional Publishing

Janyre Tromp [00:26:04]:
Exactly. And so that’s where that’s really with the nonfiction folks. I do highly recommend outlining before you write the book. And actually, if you are headed toward traditional publishing, all of my fiction authors are very jealous because you guys can pitch an agent and a publisher on a proposal and three sample chapters so you don’t have to write the whole book…

Janyre Tromp [00:26:29]:
…before you go pitching it. Which makes us in the fiction world very jealous because we have to finish our books. They have to be done completely all and 80,000 words is a typical fiction for adult book. So we put a lot of work into it and then find out it’s totally not worth it. No, it’s worth it because we grow. Right. But yeah. So I do recommend outlining and doing an annotated table of contents is what a part of most proposals, which is the chapter outline I just described.

Janyre Tromp [00:27:02]:
So doing that as part of your editing process is something you have to do anyway, so you might as well do it and then use it yourself to diagnose problems before you send it to a publisher who’s going to point them out for you.

Ann Kroeker [00:27:18]:
Totally agree. So when it comes to the difference between finding the target audience for the readers of your novel versus the readers of your nonfiction book, not. I think we’ve talked mostly right now about the nonfiction book, which you can find in a number of ways. Platform-building along the way, whether that’s through speaking and you realize this audience is snoozing versus this audience is totally engaged. I have information here. And then we talked about social media as quick, really quick input on things. But then when it comes to novels, are you. Are you mostly focused on genre? And then we know the genre readers are a type of psychographic that we can. We can trust while we’re working on it, that it’s that kind of person that’s who we’re writing to?

Make Friends with Authors of Comparative Titles

Janyre Tromp [00:27:59]:
Um, yeah. A lot of market research goes into fiction writing. Um, as a fiction writer, if you are not reading, you are not doing your job. Um, and so it’s paying real close attention to what’s going on in the market. And kind of like you said, there are requirements for different genres. So a romance actually has specific beats that you have to hit at specific points in the manuscript. Mystery is the same. Thriller has a little bit looser, but thriller has those beats too.

Janyre Tromp [00:28:29]:
So a lot of the genre fiction has very specific things that you should be doing at certain points in the manuscript. And even the more literary book clubby type books have some types of things that are required. So you have to be aware of those things going in. And that’s part of. Of knowing your audience as a novelist. Comparative titles for both fiction and nonfiction are a very, very, very effective way to find your target audience. So if you have a similar author and you go hang out and you know, I fangirl my favorite authors, right? So if I am. If I am a historical suspense author, you better believe that I talk to Kate Quinn a lot in Kate Quinn actually knows who I am.

Janyre Tromp [00:29:19]:
And I’ve shown up and she’s been like, hey. And she’s a huge author in that genre. And I pay attention to what she’s doing and what she’s talking about. I interact with her readers because they are my target audience.

Ann Kroeker [00:29:33]:
Brilliant. And you could do that with nonfiction as well.

How to Connect with a Niche Audience

Janyre Tromp [00:29:37]:
Yes, you absolutely can. That’s what I’m saying. That’s an effective tactic for both. Unless. Unless you have a. Well, even if you have a niche audience, if you go to where those people are hanging out, in essence. So if you have a Facebook group, that or.

Janyre Tromp [00:29:55]:
I mean, my husband is a…Okay. My husband is a bass guitar player. And he’s been a bass guitar player since we were in high school. And he is known in the bass guitar world. And they have boards. Do you guys remember boards? Community board from, I don’t even know, like late 90s. Okay.

Janyre Tromp [00:30:13]:
He is still on a board for bass guitar players. Like, wow. And like they interact and they have their whole thing. So if you want to be an influencer in the bass guitar world, you better be on that page because they’re very active. So. I know. So it’s things like that. It’s finding where your audience is hanging out.

Ann Kroeker [00:30:33]:
Yes.

Janyre Tromp [00:30:34]:
And going and hanging out with them. And that’s one of the things that I tell people with platform building. I hate that word too. I hate word plat, the idea of platform building. So I tell my authors, I’m like, go find your audience wherever they are and hang out with them.

Ann Kroeker [00:30:50]:
Yeah.

Janyre Tromp [00:30:51]:
And if you have a conversation with them that resonates with them, they’ll come hang out with you elsewhere too. That is platform building. That is effective, long-term, solid platform-building.

Platform-Building is Reaching Your Ideal Reader Now

Ann Kroeker [00:31:05]:
Yes. Introverts, people with social anxiety, they hate this about it. But if you’re going to go into the trouble of writing 55,000 words for a non fiction book, I just throw that out as a general number or 80 plus for your novel. You want to, you want to really know them, don’t you? Like if you care about them enough to write them the story or to, to share with them this, these ideas, this message that you have, why wouldn’t you want to have a few smaller conversations ahead of time, and start helping them now?

One thing I like to tell people is when it comes to platform building is you’re helping people now instead of waiting the two years it will take for your book, assuming you’re signing a contract today with a publishing house, if it’s traditional publishing and then your book comes out, on average could be two years from now. You can be also helping them now, even if you Hybrid publish or sorry, if you’re an indie published author, self publishing, if you go that path, even still, your, your book isn’t coming out tomorrow. You’ve got to write it.

Ann Kroeker [00:32:02]:
If you haven’t written it yet, so you’ve got some time there, why not be helping them now as well as later? Why did they have to wait to give them the information that could help them or the story that could get them excited? So with, I guess it’s different with novels. Maybe it’s a short story, you have to get them or something.

Want Readers to Read What You Write? Social Media Is Writing

Janyre Tromp [00:32:16]:
But yeah, we do, we do short stories and, and in novellas. But I also, I think of it as short form writing. So my platform on social media, my newsletter, it’s short form writing. When I’m giving these workshops live, I always say, “Okay, who out here wants readers to read what they write?” And everybody raised their hands because every writer wants readers to read what they write. Social media is writing. Our writing. Why, why do we have this prejudice against writing for people in something other than a book?

Ann Kroeker [00:33:02]:
Yeah, and there’s also a certain satisfaction about finishing short form. You finish it faster, you deliver it faster, you get the readers responding to it faster. There’s something really, I don’t know, I find it very exhilarating and I like it.

Janyre Tromp [00:33:15]:
I do too. And so, well, most of the time I do. I will admit there are times when I feel, and I think what it is, is the pressure that I put on myself to perform to a certain level when I, when I went, because I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, a little bit of a people-pleaser. Like if I’m not performing at this level, then it’s not good enough. And then I like, you know, I spin out. So warning, don’t do that to yourself.

Ann Kroeker [00:33:39]:
Well, you, you do a lot of reels. I know you do a lot of reels. So you don’t necessarily mean performing literally when you’re doing a reel. What do you mean by performing? I feel like a lot of people are going to resonate with whatever you say next.

Overcoming the Need to Perform or People-Please on Social Media

Janyre Tromp [00:33:52]:
So I feel oftentimes like I have to live up to a certain, a certain standard like in order for me to be successful that I have to tick these certain boxes. I have to be traditionally published, I have to sell this many books, I have to have this many likes on my post. I have to post this many times per week. These, these things, these performance things that I, I, I feel like in order for me to be qualified as a good writer that I have to hit these things, I have to perform these things. And you guys, like, I’m a best-selling, award-winning author. I’m an award-winning editor. I have so many credentials behind my name that for me to feel like I need to jump through these hoops is absolutely ridiculous. And I know that and yet I still do it.

Janyre Tromp [00:34:50]:
Don’t do this to yourself. If you are not okay with yourself where you are right now, you’re not going to be okay with yourself after you have all these things behind you. And so that’s it. This has turned. Like we’ve gotten to…

Ann Kroeker [00:35:04]:
I know. Thank you so much for being vulnerable, open.

Sometimes the Timing Is “Off”

Janyre Tromp [00:35:08]:
But it is something that I see over and over and over again with other authors. I fight it for myself where people authors tend to feel deeply about the world and themselves and we do ourselves a disservice when even if we drop that goose egg that we were talking about before, like maybe it wasn’t the right time. Maybe it wasn’t the right time. You know, I. This is a perfect example. So my most recent book, Darkness Calls the Tiger, that book before it released, I had written it. I think it was, it was almost a decade. I wrote the book before it was published.

Janyre Tromp [00:35:50]:
It was the first book I ever wrote. It was the third book I released. Everybody when I was trying to pitch it originally, everybody thought my writing was amazing and they couldn’t sell it because nobody wanted to read World War II stories that took place in someplace other than the European theater. Right. Which was so hard for me to move on from that. But then Toska Lee wrote this book and she did really well with it. She wrote it with Marcus Brotherton. Elise Hooper wrote a book that was World War II Pacific.

Janyre Tromp [00:36:22]:
And suddenly everybody was interested in something that was set not in the European theaters of World War II. And I sold the book. Right? So just because it goose egg back here doesn’t mean that it isn’t good quality, good, good content or that it isn’t worthwhile. It just means that maybe it’s a not yet, maybe it is bad content. And then you need to evaluate that a little bit. But—

Ann Kroeker [00:36:47]:
Or hire you, Janyre Tromp, to be my editor because you’re outstanding. I send people to you all the time.

Janyre Tromp [00:36:53]:
Thank you.

We Write to Reach People

Ann Kroeker [00:36:54]:
But yes, yes. And there’s something to be said that’s not part of this conversation per se. But like I think you’re right. Like we do need to be creating content that is quality for what it whatever its purpose is, so that people do respond to it. But I hear what you’re saying. Originally this took off when we were talking about performance. We can’t let that stop us from starting to share our message or our stories in short form. Because why are we writing anyway? To reach readers, which is what we are talking about.

Janyre Tromp [00:37:25]:
Exactly. And actually it does, even the timing of things actually does apply to target market. Because if you’re paying attention to your target market, then you will know when the right time is. So like for me, I was like, I just wanted to write a cool story that nobody had ever heard and I was writing for me and I will 100% acknowledge that. But then as I was watching the market shift, I saw what was coming and said, hold, hold up. We got a moment for my target audience and we’re gonna go. And it worked. That’s amazing.

Janyre Tromp [00:37:55]:
As I was paying attention to what was going on in the market and what was happening in my target audience, I recognized the shift and took advantage of it.

With Limited Time: Focus on Writing or Focus on Platform?

Ann Kroeker [00:38:03]:
That’s brilliant. So I have a question about, since we’re just for a second, we’re talking about platform, which all interlaces with this question of reaching our target reader, target audience. How do you. Maybe you could talk about it personally and then more broadly, but like how do you balance the sharing of content in some format in order to platform build versus writing your actual books and doing that work? Because I know a lot of people who are writing novels or nonfiction books are really struggling with this. Like how can I write my book if I’m busy making all this content for, for online or writing guest posts or opinion pieces or whatever.

Janyre Tromp [00:38:43]:
The struggle is real. First of all, the struggle is real. Okay? So I always tell people, write your book first. Like make that your priority because if your book stinks, it is not going to sell. Okay?

Ann Kroeker [00:39:00]:
Are you talking about novelists right now?

Janyre Tromp [00:39:03]:
I’m talking about both. I’m saying like put, put your effort into your writing, whatever that may be. Right? Okay. Like as. Even as a nonfiction author, you don’t have to finish your book as a nonfiction writer. Right, Right. Just, but you know, just do your three chapters. But….

Janyre Tromp [00:39:20]:
And I’m saying write your book as in put together your annotated table of contents, do your research on your audience, write a few sample or a few articles and see how they go. Like do your testing. That’s part of writing your book. Okay. The research, that’s all writing. And I’m a very big believer in everything that goes into the writing process is part of Writing. If part of your process is going and walking through the art museum, that’s writing. Okay.

Janyre Tromp [00:39:50]:
That will save you from burnout. Okay. Part of my process is going to Lake Michigan quite often because I’m not that far from Lake Michigan.

Ann Kroeker [00:39:58]:
Nice.

Janyre Tromp [00:39:59]:
And that is part of my process. Just like. Okay, so your primary responsibility if you are wanting to write a book? It’s to write the book. Okay. Having good content for your intellectual property, which we talked about before, that, that thing that you were planning to sell, right? That is your primary goal, then that is your primary responsibility. I’m not saying forsake the marketing. I’m saying if you find yourself and you have 10 minutes today and that’s all the time you have, you should probably work on your book and not worry about the marketing today. So when you look at the whole scope of things, you need to be doing marketing and writing at the same time, but meet your writing goals first and then work on your, on your, on your platform.

Develop Systems and Schedule Content

Janyre Tromp [00:40:57]:
How I kind of do that when I’m freaking out a little bit. I schedule the heck out of things. Okay. I batch post like it’s my job, because it is. Okay. I go in. I keep a list. I thought it was here.

Janyre Tromp [00:41:11]:
It’s upstairs. I was going to grab it and show you guys. I keep a running list of random ideas that I borrow and shift for my purposes. Sometimes I will, you know, keep track of thing of things. The audience that my audience is asking me about. We, in the novel world, we do a lot of book recommendations. So I keep lists of books that I want to read, books that I have read.

Janyre Tromp [00:41:42]:
And then I like mix and match match stuff. I reuse content. I will recommend the same book 10 times because, you know, that’s the only book I’ve read in the month, which has never happened since the advent of audiobooks. That has never happened before then I’m sure it did. But you know, so I will repurpose content as well. So I will do things like I just did a reel the other day of. I had somebody ask me, hey, what book would you recommend for my book club? Well, I put. Pulled out books that I read years ago and gave my little blurbs of why I would recommend those.

Janyre Tromp [00:42:23]:
It took me a very short amount of time to record that I was my. I didn’t, I don’t even think I had any makeup on that day. Like my audience doesn’t care. Maybe your audience does and know your audience. Right. But that’s a good way to just kind of keep things going. I’m very aware of. We talk a lot about buckets.

Janyre Tromp [00:42:46]:
I have three buckets that I kind of put content into because it’s stuff I would talk about anyway. So books, obviously, is one of those. And I try to keep a pretty narrow hold on what types of books I recommend because I know my audience.

Janyre Tromp [00:43:10]:
And then I do my family. I don’t happen to post pictures of my kids on public social media. That’s 100% up to individuals. My husband is in the tech world and is like, absolutely not. So I post pretty pic. I post me, my husband, and my insane cats. Brave has become a fan favorite. He is half a French fry short of a Happy Meal.

Janyre Tromp [00:43:33]:
He is nuts, does crazy stuff, and it is gold. People love it. And he recommends books, too. It’s fantastic, right?

Ann Kroeker [00:43:43]:
Nice.

Janyre Tromp [00:43:44]:
And then the third one is…my tag is Beautiful Ugly Me. So I look at life, at the hard things of life, and find things that are beautiful, even when it isn’t pretty. And so that’s quotes, that’s pretty. Pictures, that’s whatever is going on in my life. And so I actually have a whole file ready to go of quotes. And then I will sometimes pair them with pictures, photos that I’ve taken because I go to Lake Michigan to decompress, and I take walks to decompress, and I take pictures as part of that. And so I have this file folder of pictures and this file folder of quotes, and I’m like, hey, I feel this quote today. And that picture goes with it.

Janyre Tromp [00:44:26]:
And look, bang. And I will schedule a whole month when I’m on.

Ann Kroeker [00:44:31]:
It makes you sound….you make it sound so doable and you’ve tied it to your ideal audience because that’s who you’re reaching in this way as well. And it sounds like it’s necessary. Would you say it’s necessary for this life that we’re leading as authors?

Janyre Tromp [00:44:50]:
Yeah, and I’m somebody. I’m kind of…I mentioned it before. I am kind of a little bit of a ditz. Okay. I don’t know. My natural self is very disorganized, and I recognize that about myself. So I put frameworks into place so that I’m not always in panic mode, because if I didn’t put these structures into place, I would be in the corner, curled up in a ball in anxiety, like, paralyzed. Okay. And so these are things that I do to, like, just make it doable for myself. I am not always perfect about it. And I have kind of gotten to the point in my career where I’m okay with that. That’s not even my career in my life.

When Life Happens, Readers Understand

Janyre Tromp [00:45:38]:
I’ve gotten to that point in my life where there are just times, there are just times when it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna come together. And it seems for me that often it is not gonna come together. I just plan for it not to come together. I don’t remember a single book release like, like my last book release happened. My mom was in the hospital fighting for her life and I was in the hospital with her. So like, you know, you just do whatever you can do and that’s just gotta be okay. And the lovely thing about it is if you are honest with your audience in general, they’re gonna see that. “Like guys, I’m sorry, this is, this is where I’m at.” And they’re gonna be like, “Yep, gotcha.”

Ann Kroeker [00:46:24]:
I love this.

Janyre Tromp [00:46:25]:
Who you are already on, on social media, in your, in your newsletters, with your fellow authors. It, it just, yeah, being honest, you get a lot of grace.

Ann Kroeker [00:46:38]:
Well and you’re doing that right now. You know, you’re doing that in this conversation. You’ve been vulnerable and open the whole time, but especially on two different topics at least. And I think that’s also got to be so reassuring for anybody tuning in right now who’s feeling like, “Okay, here she is…” like you’re what? You’re an award-winning author, award-winning editor, what else? Award-winning everything. And you’ve got all those credentials and yet you’re a human. We hear it in your voice, we see it in your face. You’re a human being who has ups and downs and hard days and you are a self-proclaimed ditz at times. But you find systems that work and you work with those systems and sometimes the systems don’t work because life happens.

Real People Connect with Real People

Ann Kroeker [00:47:19]:
And I think that too has got to be so reassuring to people who are tuning in right now is thinking, “How am I going to do it all? Oh, sometimes I won’t do it all, sometimes I won’t do it.” But the point is in terms of the theme of the, of the conversation is these are real people. It’s what I heard you say just now. You know? You’re a real person and they’re real people too. They’re not just a marketing figure. It’s not just an avatar, it’s a real person, you said, and these real people want to hear from a real person. And I am seeing that more and more.

Ann Kroeker [00:47:49]:
At the time of this recording, it seems like everybody’s all done with Pinterest-perfect. Remember how much we fussed about our little Instagram nine-grid or whatever that was? Those had to be just right, and they all had to be lined up. And we couldn’t have this one before that one, because then the color would be off and all that. Nobody cares anymore at all. Not only because it’s just coming through their feedback, but, like, even if they go there and it’s all different colors, they don’t care because you’re a real person and they want to talk to a real person and they want to know you’re a real person. And not AI talking at them, too.

Ann Kroeker [00:48:20]:
And so there’s something to be said for living as our real self, reaching real people. And I think that, to me, is a big part of this. Your ideal audience, they’re comprised of real people. It’s a real person we’re writing to.

Janyre Tromp [00:48:34]:
And that’s the other thing that’s really nice about being in constant communication with them is you don’t forget who they are. You don’t forget who you’re writing to. It’s really easy as an author to get in your little author bubble and just do what you think is best. And then all of a sudden, you hit your target audience as real people and you’re like, “Oh, yeah. They’re feeling pain, they’re feeling confusion,” or whatever these things might be. A different kind of felt need that maybe, maybe something in your message you would be able to connect with them.

Ann Kroeker: But at least you can commiserate and help them feel heard. I mean, that’s what we all want, right? Like, we want to be read, they want to be heard, they want to be known. We want to share something with them to build that human connection. Isn’t that what this writing life is all about? I think that’s what finding our ideal reader. It’s driven from this place of human. Human connection. Maybe…love? I hope some love, too.

Emotion Sells, But Don’t Manipulate

Janyre Tromp [00:49:38]:
That’s where I think going all the way back to what we were talking about real early is emotion. The reason that emotion sells books and sells product is because it creates that connection. And so. And people can tell phony. So don’t go in there manipulating people’s emotions, because that’ll just make them angry. You don’t want to do that. But if you authentically connect with people on their emotional level and where they’re hurting and how you can help them that sparks that connection and that is something like you, you, you can’t buy that. And it’s an amazing affirmation as an author when that happens too.

Ann Kroeker [00:50:28]:
I agree. Even in short-form interactions that I have on social media, I have a hard time explaining to other people what I’ve done because I feel like, “I’m doing what I would do. If this is another person, I would just talk to them and I would be me.” You know, we were talking about that performative thing earlier where you were opening up so, so genuinely I think that genuineness, maybe that’s a good word too. It’s like, I don’t know, that’s just kind of who I am. So I think we all are but we maybe do feel like we have to perform to some extent. “I have to do an act of writing. I feel…

Ann Kroeker [00:51:02]:
…it needs to be all a certain way to be online.” No, just be you and say the things you would say, the way you would say them, and hopefully you’ll find those people who like to connect in that way. That’s what I hope for everybody who’s listening in, or tuning in today.

What to Expect in X Marks the Spot

Well, again we talked about how you’re going to lead this training. It’s, “X Marks the Spot: Finding Gold Through Targeting Your Audience.” and I thought I would just briefly explain that since you’re going to be in YPM (again, it’s Your Platform Matters). It’s $12 a month. You pay for one month if you want to and just join us.

Ann Kroeker [00:51:39]:
When they join live, can they ask you questions? You field questions? It’s interactive? [Yes!] Good. But it is a training. I mean it’s a presentation and so come you can dig in, you can learn more from Janyre and you can see how delightful she is. You will not want to miss this. You can watch it on replay. So if you’re tuning in here two years later, the replay should still be there for you.

How can people get to know you better and learn what you have to offer?

Get to Know Janyre

Janyre Tromp [00:52:04]:
Absolutely. So I half jokingly say if you can spell my name, you can find me. So I am Janyre Tromp. All over social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, I’m attempting TikTok y’. All. I’m working on it. But that’s my website, my author website. And then I spell your name.

Janyre Tromp [00:52:28]:
It is J A N Y R E and then my last name T R O M P. So my web address is janyretromp.com. You can also find me at EditingInsiders.com [insiders plural] and that’s my editing world. And then I actually run a free Facebook group for folks to just ask general editing questions. Anything from where do I put this comma to. To can you give us an idea of how to write a hook? And so I answer those questions. It’s totally free because I have a heart for all of the authors that are out there in this world. It is a crazy industry and it is constantly changing.

Janyre Tromp [00:53:13]:
And I just. And you and I have a very similar passion for authors where we just want to help you guys. And so I would love to hang out with you wherever you want to hang out with me, if you want to see pretty pictures. And Instagram is kind of my happy place. So if you want to hang out with me, that’s where I am most often.

Ann Kroeker [00:53:32]:
So any last bits of advice? This can be about anything related to writing. It doesn’t have to be restricted to your target reader. How would you like to send people off?

You Have a Message…Don’t Be Afraid to Make Those Connections

Janyre Tromp [00:53:44]:
I’m going to say you have a message. You have a message that only you can give. And don’t be afraid to. To give it. Don’t be afraid to step out into that and, and talk to people and make those connections. It’s. It is a vulnerable place to be. But embrace it and people will see that.

Ann Kroeker [00:54:05]:
Love it. Thank you for being here. I’ll bet you’re ready to go deeper on this topic. I know I am. And I can’t wait for Janyre’s training that she’s going to lead in your platform matters (YPM). That’s my paid membership for writers who are working to build their own platform. We call it YPM for short.

Ann Kroeker [00:54:23]:
You can go to annkroeker.com/ypm to learn more about that. Join in October. You can be on the call with us live. We’d love to have you. So learn more@annkroeker.com/ypm and I’m Ann Kroeker, cheering you on as a writing coach in your ear everywhere. We may meet at my website, on this podcast, in your inbox, or even in person. Or I’m always looking for ideas to share with you that will help you achieve your writing goals and have fun by being more curious, creative, and productive. Thank you for being here.