Define Your Target Audience

The big checklist that I used while writing my new book #Workout contained the following items:

• Remove use of the words “agile” and “lean”
• Remove use of the words “software” and “development”
• Remove use of the words “Scrum” and “Kanban”

Granted, I couldn’t entirely prevent the use of these words. Some references to agile communities, software developers, and Scrum books were certainly useful or even important. But at least, I tried to minimize people’s association of my book with the “niche” of agile software development.

Why?

Because, as the target audience for this book, I settled on creative networkers (the term I prefer to use instead of knowledge workers). I made this decision long before I started writing, considering that many readers of my earlier books said that my work is applicable to all modern organizations, not just the software companies.

It is important to define your target audience when you’re writing a book, because this should have an influence on your style, formatting, visualization, and marketing. I decided to write a book for everyone who feels responsible for management (not only the “managers”). This is reflected in the words I used, the illustrations I made, the layout we created, the different editions I am publishing, and the marketing channels I am using.

The goal is to reach many more creative networkers, not only agile software developers.

I hope it works.

Fingers crossed.

If you have an idea that could help, let me know!

(image: (c) 2009 Espen Sundve, Creative Commons 2.0)