My Target Audience Ain’t Riding Pink Flamingos
Some of them do, though
Who is my target audience?
I don’t know. I have no damn clue.
You tell me! Are you my target audience?
Since I couldn’t find the answer to that question, recently I self-published a book named ‘Beyond Cristiano’. If you want to have your book published with a traditional publisher, they will want to know who your target audience is so they can estimate how many potential buyers they can find in their niche pools. They have different pools. In one pool they have, for instance, football fans. You know, those die-hard football fans who swim backstroke in their pool with tattoos of their clubs and everything. Then they have another pool with, for example, Cristiano Ronaldo fans who just chill on their inflatable flamingos while screaming ‘siuuu’ all day long. Then, to have themselves covered, publishers have one more Cristiano Ronaldo pool, but that is the one filled with people who hate Ronaldo. So, it is really a Leo Messi pool, that one. Then, of course, they have many other pools such as the philosopher’s pool where people read Marcus Aurelius, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus and that sort of stuff. They are not much of swimmers, those guys. Just next to it, there is another pool reserved for spiritualists.
If you focus on people from one of these pools and write a book that pleases their interests, there is a chance you will get yourself a publisher who will take care of editing, book design, book launch, marketing and so on. You can write one of those books that glorifies Cristiano Ronaldo, you point to that pool where muscled dudes are chilling on their pink flamingos and job done.
But, if your book is a bit more complex than just wanking on Cristiano Ronaldo and it tends to give both sides of the story, plus it provides some societal, philosophical and spiritual perspectives, a publisher will ask you, with a dumb look like Kramer’s from Seinfeld, “who is your target audience?”
You are the publisher! You tell me who my target audience is! Why do I need to do your job?
So, four months since I self-published the book, have I figured out who my audience is? Have I fuck!
The thing is, ‘Beyond Cristiano’ is a book where I used football as a metaphor for life. What I really did, I wrote about some pretty complex concepts I spend a lot of time thinking about, but I used football and football characters to say what I had to say. Why did I do that? Because I had followed football for 20 years and I felt comfortable using football as my tool. At the same time, explaining various life perspectives through football makes the book complex but quite unique. You see, if I had decided to write solely about philosophy/spirituality or solely about football, I would have had better chances to determine my target audience and thus reach a niche of people willing to buy my book.
However, I could not have done that. The whole point of the book is questioning a tribal mind-set which is the essence of the game of football. To question the tribal mind-set means to approach tribes critically, rather than identify with one of the tribe. Identification limits us to see the full picture. Therefore, some die-hard fans might find the book disturbing. But I disturb people whatever pool I jump into so I got used to it.
That is because I haven’t identified with any particular genre. Does that make me contradictory in my ways? I heard recently something that struck me. It read, “Of course I am contradictory, I am the whole Universe in a body of a man.” The word ‘genre’ comes from Latin ‘genus’ meaning ‘origin’ or ‘group’. If I didn’t approach the character of Cristiano Ronaldo critically, but I was a member of Ronaldo’s wankers group or, contrary, of Ronaldo’s haters group, my book rating would now be higher. But instead, I created two fictional characters, David and Edo, one of whom is a Ronaldo fan and one who is a bit sceptical about Ronaldo’s relentless pursuit of glory. Unlike David, who rates Ronaldo for his determination to be the best in the world, Edo’s totem is Ronaldinho, a man who has never been part of groups, who didn’t play in the name of the badge or personal recognitions. He played free of everything.
So, who is my target audience? Those who chase glory or those who chase love? Those who chase protection in tribes or those who chase freedom? To understand Ronaldinho part of the book, we need to see beyond genre, beyond social groups, tribes and badges.
I guess, people who tend to think critically would like the book ‘Beyond Cristiano’. Those who get to understand that every blessing is a curse, and every curse is a blessing. Those who understand that chasing greatness so eagerly must have some downsides. There is no perfection.
Perhaps, in an ideal world, my target audience are people who are into both football and philosophy. But that is a micro-niche. It is a pool so small that people don’t even wear swimming suits because they just don’t care if someone sees them naked. A person who edited the book ‘Beyond Cristiano’, Frank T Bird, once told me, “I know there are people who are into philosophy and football because you are one and I am another one.”
I thought a book launch event I hosted in the Walkden library would give me some answers, and even though there were quite a few Manchester United fans there, which should served me as a clear signal who my potential readers are, I am not sure if that was the case. Yes, David, one of the characters in the book, is a Manchester United fan who is willing to die in the name of the club, but the other character, Edo, questions that whole approach to life. As if all of this wasn’t complex enough, the book is a mix between fiction and non-fiction, which are the two main pools in which all the other pools exist.
You have heard for the saying, ‘football is life’ before, didn’t you? I guess we all have a different understanding of what that means. The book ‘Beyond Cristiano’ is for those who see patterns of life in every aspect of football, who see the fullness of life on the football pitch. I would even say that you don’t need to be into football too much to appreciate the book ‘Beyond Cristiano’. But at the same time, it helps if you know who Cristiano Ronaldo and Ronaldinho are.
If you are interested, you can buy the book ‘Beyond Cristiano’ here:
