Who is your Target Audience?

[Whispersecret]

On another thread Diane Marie said, "Aren’t men really our audience at literotica?"

That got me thinking.

I don't think so. I think many people write directly for men. I don't. I write what I "have to" write and attempt not to try to please any one audience.

I like to tell myself that my writing appeals to men as well as women, even though there is always a very strong thread of romance in all my stories, and that sort of sets me apart from many romance writers today. So, perhaps I am subconsciously focusing on a specific audience in order to foster that perception about myself.

How about you? Do you write to please a specific audience? Who do you think IS the Literotica audience?

 

[TheEarl]

I'd like to think that my stories can appeal to women as i think they are the more discerning audience. But then again one of my stories has been described by a man as "a woman's story" and by a woman as a "man's story." So I guess I'm not doing very well .

As to the Lit audience in general, I'd say that it is probably 70:30 M/F. However a lot of the males will be the ones just looking for jerk-off stories.

The theory is this. With sufficient beer-goggles in place, any woman can get sex. So women on this site are her mainly for the story, rather than something to jill-off to. Men, however, are never guaranteed of sex. So some of the male audience will be frustrated and looking for one-string banjo stories.

Plus there is also the idea that men are more likely to look up porn on the internet than women.

I'd also like to put in the idea that 10% of all Lit readers are prob underage.

Anyone disagree?

The Earl

 

[KillerMuffin]

My target audience is anyone who wants to read sexually related material but isn't necessarily looking to cum from it. Believe it or not, I have a wide audience here at Lit despite the relative lack of heat in my stories.

I think the general Lit audience is mostly comprised of horny people who want to have a satisfying orgasm without a lot of hassle.

 

[BigTexan]

I would like to say that when I write for Lit, I write for a very selective audiance, me!

I would like to say that, but it would be a lie.

I write because I enjoy writing, but I write for Lit because I enjoy being praised. If I wrote just to please myself, then I might not receive my "payment" (praise) in the form of wonderful glowing feedback. So I admit it. I altered my story "Like Mother, Like Daughter" to contain more of an incest element, because after lurking and studying this site I noticed that incest stories do better rating wise than most others. My next story won't have an incest element. If I ever get the damned thing written. But it will be longer than I would have written it, because looking at the top lists shows that readers like long stories better. They like character development and more complex story lines. So that is what I'll try to give them. I guess that may be a little like whoring myself out, but if so, so be it.

When I write stories I hope to see published for money, then I certainly do write to a specific audiance. The editors of the small set of magazines that buy that particular type of story.

I study what kinds of stories they like and I try to give them those kinds of stories. I'm still working at it, but someday maybe I'll be the next "Stephen King" who knows. I might win the lottery too, if I'd just buy a ticket.

BigTexan

 

[medjay]

My target audience = Anyone who likes to read and is not easily offended or confused.

 

[ronde]

I dont' really target a particular gender. It sounds wierd, but I usually write what my characters tell me to write. I have a general story line that I follow, but sometimes that changes along the way. By the time I finish, a story seems like it would attract one gender or the other. I am usually wrong.

I get feedback from men about romances that I figured would only appeal to women. I get feedback from women in the mature stories that I thought would be read mostly by men. I've thought about targeting, but I don't really know how I would, given my success at predicting which gender would read what story.

I don't have lots of graphic sex in any of my work, and I don't write in the incest category, so I probably don't have as many readers as some. Many of my readers are of the same vintage as myself (I'm "really experienced"), and I think they come to Lit for an enjoyable read with some erotic content. It's my impression that most of the younger crowd come for a quick pull on the old pud. Much of the writing from younger authors would indicate the same, as do their BB posts about "one handed typing".

I do agree that at least some readers are underage. I have gotten feedback from a couple.

 

[Guest]

My 2 cents......

Interesting question, one in which I didn't have an immediate answer for until I had a chance to go and take a sampling from the feedback emails I've received and saved. Actually...I was surprised.

Percentage wise...and taken from a reasonably good number, I have 53% women sending me feedback, and 47% men. I was actually quite pleased to see those statistics as that tells me I'm getting closer at least to writing the types of stories that both men as well as women seem to enjoy.

True...I tend to write longer stories on average than most I've seen and read here. I think that I write enough romance with character development so that most women seem to enjoy them, and yet have plenty of "action" for the men who are patient enough to get to the "good stuff" as it were.

All in all...I'm happy with whatever "nich" I've found for myself...and unless I start receiving numerous emails telling me to get a life doing something else...I think I'll stick with what I'm doing and be happy I'm entertaining a few people out there at least.......

To sleep.......perchance to dream - William Shakespear

I remain,

 

[deliciously_naughty]

My target audience is me...do I get off on my story? I spend so damn much time writing for an "audience" as a grad student, that I only write for myself for lit. If people love it, so much the better and I certainly love love love the feedback. But writing for lit is more about developing as a writer than it is writing to a certain audience. If I did, I'd still be writing more chapters of certain stories.

 

[Guest]

Most of my feedback comes from men (oh, is that a Freudian slip? lol)

I would have to say, however, that I tend to write for myself. I usually seem to have several stories running around in my head at the same time, and often I am unsure of the ending as I begin to put pen to paper. The resulting stories tend to be things that excite me, though. lol

But - I hope readers enjoy them, and I positively love hearing from them (I'm such a hopeless feedback junkie)!

 

[TheEarl]

I don't really write for myself. I do in the sense that I can sit back and think "Wow, that's damn good. And I did that." when I'm done, but I never really get aroused by my stories. Most of my pleasure from writing them is the buzz from feedback and nice voting. So my audience is above me in who I want to please.

The Earl

 

[Pookie]

I generally write for myself, but I do pay attention to the feedback I get to pick up on things that readers tend to be interested in. I will sometimes throw in a small plot twist just to see what kind of reaction I get from readers. If they like it (and I like it as well), I may write more about it in other stories. An example of this involves cream pies. I included this in my first story just to see what reaction I would generate. I got a few positive reponses directed specifically at that scene. Cream pies wasn't what the plot was about, it just happened to be in one of the sex scenes.

The plots in my stories are ideas I develop on my own. If I don't like the plot, there is no need for me to begin writing a story based on it. I try to develop a good storyline, then build sex scenes around it. It is amazing how powerful a simple sex scene can be with a good plot wrapped around it. I don't write my stories targeting a certain sex scene ... to me that equates to the "tail wagging the dog". Write an interesting story and both genders will enjoy it equally I believe.

One test I would suggest, read your story ignoring the actual sex scenes. If its boring, then in all likelihood, the sex scenes will have to be the hook to keep the reader. If the storyline is interesting, the sex scenes (if handled well) will just be icing on the cake.

 

[Chicklet]

I write for me. I don't want to be turned on by my story, that's not what I'm aiming for, but the only person I'm really worried about is myself. If I don't like it, then of course it's shit.

Also I write for my boyfriend. I love when he enjoys what I've written.

My target audience is right here at home. Makes me less insane, that way, I think = )

Chicklet

 

[JUDO]

I write for the imaginative, thinking reader who likes to get lost in a sexual world they've never encounted and probably never will.


- Judo

 

[DanielOrme]

I agree with whoever it was that said "I wrote the story because I wanted to read it." Whatever I write has to be something that I like. Because of that, I assumed that my audience was male, but half of my positive feedback has come from female readers. I don't know what that means, but it's very gratifying.

 

[Diane Marie]

In a way I started this tread, at least whispersecret’s trend of thought, so I’m going to respond.

My comment was more a general comment on who comes to this site. I contend men read here in much greater numbers then women do. This is just my impression, I could be totally wrong. If it wasn’t for a woman friend, I’d have never found Literotica. I may have very well found it on my own, read a few of the stories, decided it was a pornographic site and never returned. That would have been sad, there are some very good erotic stories here. There is a difference! Don’t I sound like a prude.

My own reasons for writing here were motivated by hate, surprisingly my writing has allowed me to over come that hate. Perhaps I just needed to vent, call it self contempt, but I could not talk it out with anyone, I found I could through my writing. I do target the men who come here, although it’s only a segment of the male population, thank god. I have found that many men who don’t fit the cuckold husband, or wantabe type, like my stories. That could be because most of my stories have been, at least in my opinion, more pornographic then erotic. I might add pornographic in a way men like, I write those parts but they are inspired partly by what the men here write. See I’m not a prude.

Regardless of what we write, I still contend we pick an audience, which doesn’t necessarily mean gender, or have one picked for us, if we happen to write to be published. At least if we want to be paid to be published. Try writing a romance story for a lesbian publication where one of the lead characters happens to be a man. Was I really that stupid? Yes! Maybe you’d like to be published in the New Yorker, if so it better appeal to the literary crowd, it also may help if no one can understand it. We could always submit a piece which has no audience, but do you really think that would get published? Maybe for some it’s subconscious, but we all write to an audience, even if that happens to be an audience of one, ourselves. Do we ever truly write just for ourselves, even though my journals are written for me, I am still mindful that someday others well read them.

Don’t confuse what I’ve just said with wanting to please anyone. You never have to write to please anyone but yourself. What is important, is to write in a way your intended audience well want to read what you’ve written. Maybe your intend is to confirm their core values, maybe it’s to tear them down, but in either case, you as a creative writer, you have to write to your audience. In other words your audience has to want to read what you’ve written.

Maybe your intent is so trite as to appeal to that Jerk-Off crowd Earl referred to. Then know your audience, forget the build up, other then she’s the most fuckable woman in the world, forget the romance, forget the foreplay, forget that we need more then just to be fucked, get right on down to the fucking, give us massive orgasms, show us as insatiable fucking machines, taking on one man after another. As pointless as that is, that is what that audience wants. The truth be know, it’s not so pointless, it shows how that author, along with that audience, feel about us. I do want men, man hater that I am, to see me as a sexual being, but I’m not a sex object. We can be your lover, we can be your whore, but none of us are what those men seem to want. Maybe that is why they have to come here to spank their monkey. At times, I wish I wasn’t so damn mean.

We write for ourselves, but we all want to be on the best seller list. Your not going to get there if you don’t know your audience, worse yet if you don’t even know who that audience is.

 

[Sabledrake]

I wouldn't even know where to begin if I had to sit down and write a story aimed mainly at men, or mainly at women. I just try to write a good, interesting story. The sort of thing I'd like to read. Feedback has seemed fairly evenly split so far.

Sabledrake

 

[karmadog]

Diane Marie, I think you have it backwards. I don't think that you pick an audience and then write 'towards' them. I think you write how you write, then figure out who to market it at. You can't just choose to write 'literary' fiction if you're not that style of writer. Likewise, it's not easy to write sci fi if you don't get science, or romance if you're Ed Bundy.

The writer finds their style and interests and then finds an audience for it. Not the other way around.

 

[Dolma Kalem]

Target Audience?



I'm not sure that I'm experienced enough to give a meaningful view here, so I will..

I'm not sure that I could write for a 'target audience', even if I had one. Like others who have posted answers, I write because I enjoy it.

My stories start as situations, and/or characters, and the story develops as I write it. Pretty much like life I guess. Again like life, some of the stories go nowhere, and clog up my hard disk, awaiting inspiration. Hopefully, the ones that see the light of day are worth a read. If they are, then I'm happy.

Life, and the really talented people here at lit, have helped me with tips about writing as a craft. But when I'm in the middle of a story, it's me and them. Them being the characters, with me as the narrator. If they screw up, then I'm nowhere near enough of a writer to help them. If they and their tale is fantastic, maybe I can describe it. It's quite rare though, to feel that I've done the characters, and story justice.

But, I enjoy it, and I hope that other people do too.

 

[M.A.Thompson]

Like most here, I began writing for an audience of one, myself. When I submitted my first story to Lit, I did not foresee any specific audience for my work, I was just hoping there would be a sole or two who would find enjoyment in what I had created.

Lo and behold, a small following began to emerge with each new submission and they are, based on those who choose to identify themselves, primarily women. So I suppose they are my audience, but not necessarily my target.

I continue to write for me. I never think about what the reader might want me to write. While I admit, I would like for them to enjoy it, it is not their needs I am fulfilling through my words.

I am by no means trying to disparage my audience or say I do not appreciate them; nothing could be further from the truth. What I am saying is that I am my own target audience. Readers, especially the loyal ones, are a sweet, satisfying reward.

 

[Guest]

Couldn't agree with you more

M.A. Thompson quote:

"Readers, especially the loyal ones, are a sweet, satisfying reward."

Here here......couldn't agree with you more.

I remain.

 

[NaughtyMike]

Men, who are male pigs- with high IQs, worldly knowledge, knows baseball, and like to beat off. My two biggest fans are women-go figure.

 

[MikeAndJan]

Who do I write for?

I think it's apparent that most of us write primarily for our own enjoyment. But, to be very honest, I write for my wife and the friend or friends I'd like to eventually have. My wife has gotten to know some of my deepest secret fantasies that otherwise would have remained secret without this site. And, she's opened her mind to things that she'd never have considered otherwisw. We've emailed with some folks through the stories and actually met one couple in real life. But, my search continues for that special friend that can, like my wife, share my secret fantasies with me and also just be a good lifetime friend!

 

[Diane Marie]

I can only smile

Interesting that so many of you write for yourself, that you don’t have nor care if you have an audience. Yet you post your stories at literotica…Which means your story is either erotic or porn or perchance both. Can you please repeat that, I laughing so hard I’m not sure I heard that right!!!!

 

[MikeAndJan]

Perhaps some of us write here to improve our skills!

Diane Marie said..., "Interesting that so many of you write for yourself, that you don’t have nor care if you have an audience"
Diane, perhaps you just can't understand someone writing for fun and enjoyment for themselves. To improve their style or experiment with different styles of writing. Although your stories are pretty well said, perhaps you could experiment with something most writer's utilize to more expertly convey thier story such as dialogue. I can see why you don't understand and wonder just why you're laughing at others.

 

[Guest]

I must be improving.....

Speaking of target audiences......

My newest story "Tattoo" posted last night. One of the first feedback emails I got was this one. Thought I'd share it:

This message contains feedback for: Thesandman
About the submission: Tattoo
This feedback was sent by: Anonymous

Comments:

gone are the days when you wrote good sex, alas now your stories are too "lit" and not enough "erotica" back to basics mate more fucktalk


Obviously my writing MUST be improving......lol

I remain,