Personal: Audience, O Audience, Wherefore are thou, Oh Audience?

If you write, and no one reads.... ?



There are books, nay!, there are volumes of information about writing:

1. How to write (discipline)
2. Where to write (wherever)
3. What to write (write what you know)
4. When to write (see #1 above)
5. Why to write (want to?  need to?)

But I haven't found anything that talks about finding an audience for your actual words.

Buried in the advice of the numbered list above are references to working with editors and submitting work to publishers.

Most people hire an editor. In that relationship, editors will critique the technique of the writing and perhaps toss in a comment, or two, about style. But it's not their job to mentor.

I perceive publishers as mentors only with respect to the sale-ability of your next work...

I personally found an audience, kind of, when I enrolled in a college level Creative Writing and Fiction Workshop course.  They were good classes - twice a week for a few months. Ditto for the first writing class I had taken there (Journalism).

I've got projects on my plate that seem to have a built-in audience:

• Life at Bayshore Townhomes and the Homeowners' Association that goes with it. It has two possible spin-offs:
• Make the appendix available as a separate volume √
• (Done, and it's available on Amazon)
• Generalize the Bayshore Life for other HOAs.
• Edit and publish my Mother's previously unpublished works.
• I helped her self-publish an autobiography several years ago, and when she died I inherited her other work.  I envision two books from this: another biography based on her Gratitude Journal and her Writer's Notebook. and a collection of her essays. Titles TBD.
• (You can order a copy of her book at www.GloriaJaggers.com or from Amazon searching for Give Me A Broom To Sweep Away The Cobwebs of My Mind.
• JM8 - A Shot Across the Bow
  This is one of my class projects - Fiction Workshop, I believe. This offers two opportunities:
• I can use this as an example to teach Mr. Johnson's 2017 Fiction Workshop class how to leverage CreateSpace.com for submitting their work, and then actually self-publishing it!
• I can begin my JM# series of memoirs! I still don't have an immediate audience, but this is something I can actually begin producing.  [Really have to learn to prep for Kindle!]

But even with my JM# work I have to find my own audience...