GIVING YOUR READERS WHAT THEY WANT

Giving Your Readers What They Want: Why It’s Important to Know the Rules

Imagine one day, you have a craving for chocolate cream pie. I mean, the perfect kind of chocolate cream pie that’s the ideal combination of a buttery crust, sweet chocolatey filling, and decadent whipped cream.

Are you drooling yet?

You go to your favorite bakery, because they have the best chocolate pie there, and point to the one you want in the display case. It’s covered in cream, so you can’t see the filling, but it’s labeled very clearly, “chocolate cream pie,” and you cannot wait to dig in.

But then something happens. You get home, eager to have a slice of that pie. When you cut into it, however, you get a terrible surprise. It isn’t chocolate cream pie at all. It’s banana cream pie, and you’re disappointed. You might even be a bit angry. You have nothing against banana cream pie, and this pie could very well have been the most lovely and delicious banana cream pie in the world, but it wasn’t what you wanted. It wasn’t what you thought you purchased. It wasn’t what you’ve been craving.

Author friends, this is how our readers feel when we don’t label our books correctly. If what we list as a romance doesn’t have a happily ever after, for example, we’ve just slipped our reader a banana cream pie when they were craving chocolate. And they aren’t going to like it. They aren’t going to forgive and forget either.

How can you avoid making this sort of mistake?

1. Know your genre expectations.

For a romance, the love story must be central, and it’s got to have a happily ever after (or at least a “happy for now”). In a mystery, the crime must be solved. A paranormal book needs to have magical elements. Inspirational must have religious themes. You get the idea.

2. Make sure your cover art is appropriate for your genre.

Go onto Amazon. Look up your genre. Does your cover fit in with the others? It’s great to be creative and to stand out, but if your cover looks like women’s fiction, and you’ve written a horror novel, that is no bueno.

3. Be certain your back cover blurb accurately describes your story.

Harry Potter could be described as, “The story of an abused and neglected orphan who finds friends and the family he never had when he is sent to boarding school,” but is that really what is central about the story? Read your blurb with a critical eye. Are you hitting the heart of the story, or have you left something pivotal out?

4. Use caution with keywords.

Finding the best keywords for your book can be emotionally exhausting. It helps to use resources to let you know which keywords are hot at the moment, but don’t fall into the trap of trying to make your story fit the keywords. Vampire billionaire reverse harem romance might be trending, but if your book is a cozy mystery about a woman with a crime-solving cat, do not pretend you have billionaire vampires in your books just to get readers. They won’t like it. I promise. But if you use “amateur sleuth mystery with a cat,” you may just find your people.

5. Walk the mixed-genre tightrope carefully.

I am really bad at sticking to one genre. It’s a curse. My newest book is a mystery with fantasy and romance elements and a female sleuth. I am ALL over the place, but I’m not alone. Many of us face this issue, and it’s not a good place to be if you’re trying to meet reader expectations. So, how can you do it? Focus on the main genre of the story. In my newest book, it would be a mystery. This meant relearning genre expectations, since I normally write romance, and I don’t want to disappoint my readers who might be die-hard mystery fans. If I do it wrong, I’m slamming then with a banana cream pie, and no one wants that, do they?

6. Read your three-star reviews.

I know. Reading reviews sucks, and Goodreads is Satan’s playground, but if you’re only reading the five-star reviews, you aren’t getting the full picture. If you only read the one-star reviews, you’re a masochist, and we don’t want that either. The three-star reviews provide the most useful information for authors. Why? Because they contain the word, “but.” For example, “I loved this book, but I was a little disappointed in the ending.” Or “This book had great characters, but it was way too long.” Your three-star reviewers are telling you what’s wrong. They might not always be right, but there could be very useful info there. Read it and weep. Just kidding. Don’t weep. Read it and use that as a way to improve your books.

Your readers are out there, and the best way to find them is by giving them what they want. Meet your genre expectations, make sure your cover fits, and do your homework on the blurb and keywords.

You’ve already done the hard work. You’ve finished your book, and now you’ve got the literary equivalent of the most delicious chocolate pie ever created. You just need to find the right people in order to give them exactly what they’ve been craving.
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Abigail Drake is the best-selling and award-winning author of over twenty books. Her newest book, “Claus and Effect”, is the second book in the Tink Holly Chronicles, and it’s about a Christmas elf who solves murders on the North Pole. Abigail is the co-founder of Romancing Your Muse, the co-coordinator of the 2023 Pennwriters Annual Conference, and she can also make a mean chocolate cream pie. In her spare time, Abigail blogs about her Labrador, Capone, and teaches writing classes for children at schools and at her local library. Abigail is represented by Lauren Bieker of FinePrint Literary Management, and her website is www.abigaildrake.net.

CLAUS AND EFFECT

With Tink Holly on the case, the Christmas Crimes Division will never be the same.

Christmas elf Tinklebelle Holly loves her new job at the Elven Bureau of Investigation, but not everyone takes her seriously. In an effort to change that, and to impress her hot boss Jax Grayson, Tink sets up an undercover operation on her own. Unfortunately, things go South Pole very quickly, and Tink’s friend, exotic dancer Scarlet Knickers, ends up dead.

Tink’s sure there’s a link between Scarlet’s death and a powerful new strain of candicocane that’s killing off members of the elven community around the globe. The drug is getting stronger. The bodies are piling up. Tink and Jax are running out of time. And the answers seem to lie with a notorious gangster who has a soft spot for Tink.

In an effort to repair her reputation and find out who killed Scarlet, Tink follows a lead to a resort in the rain forests of Belize. The jungle is no place for a Christmas elf, but Tink will do everything possible to make things right. Can she solve Scarlet’s murder, make Jax trust her again, and stop this dangerous drug ring once and for all? Or will Tink and Jax be sidelined by a betrayal they never saw coming?

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