Google and Quora know your readers
How I learn more about my readers and write stories they're searching for.
TL;DR
Use Google and Quora to find what fans want
How to take action on what you find
Capture what resonates
Your readers are searching for you
They may not know your name, yet, but they're looking for you.
They want your stories, they need them in fact. There is a hole in their lives where your particular take on their frustrations validates what they're feeling right now.
Your stories could hold the answers to questions they ask themselves.
Here's how to figure out what some of those question might be.
What does Google know?
Google knows a lot about us, perhaps too much.
This is possibly even evil, and they certainly use it to spam and stalk us with ads which we duly block and so on. Yada yada.
But they also show us a ton about the type of person they think we may be based on our searches. Like my example above, "what do cyberpunk readers like.”
Test your own genre or sub-genre and see what comes up, I guarantee that there’ll be some surprises.
The trick is to take notes and refine your ideal reader persona and intentionally use this in your writing and promotion.
Readers want referrals
This screenshot shows people want guidance on what to read with suggestions like, "Best cyberpunk books” and "cyberpunk reading list.”
Readers don't know where to start and they want to avoid wasting time on rubbish. They want to know what typifies the genre.
Suggestion two, “neuromancer” highlights the most famous book in the genre, and the first one I read when I started with cyberpunk.
How to take action?
Medium has great domain authority. Perhaps you can write definitive lists on your genre or sub-genre, garner high views and mention your own work at the end. If you provide value and show expertise it should have a positive result.
Do a Competitive Analysis. Although a fair bit of work, looking at the best books can help you see patterns and elements you could include in your own stories.
Readers want new stories
"New cyberpunk books” and "cyberpunk novels 2022.” shows that people want more than the classics, they want new books. This is good for cyberpunk writers like me. So yay! I might not be wasting my time!
How to take action?
Set aside self-doubt, get writing and finish your stories, Zane. For writers that get stuck worrying about whether people are looking for their work this kind of search suggestion should help set aside those fears.
Build up to novels, readers are looking for novels. Not necessarily flash fiction, short stories, collections, or serials. So work on producing what people are searching for, story length include. My own plan is to write a serial and then republish as a novel thus mixing my current level of production with a known reader desire.
Readers are in Existing Communities
"Books like Cyberpunk 2077” stuck out for me because if the game is popular it will raise awareness of the genre for players and readers. Both groups are now primed by the game's buzz to look for more on the genre.
It also implies that readers have expectations based on a world they’ve already experiences. They want stories set in a world they play in. They want more of the same.
Also, “cyberpunk novels reddit” comes up often and looks to be a common search pattern. Again this could be for recommendations voted up by the crowd, or reviews or general feel from non-critics.
It could also be a reader community worth investigating.
How to take action?
Learn about existing fandoms, getting to know a sub-genre’s existing communities can give you insights into expectations and possible trends.
Look for reader platforms, there are writer and reader platforms and we want to learn more about the latter. And find ways of seeding our stories without spamming.
What does Quora show?
Quora shows us what people care enough about to ask publicly on the internet.
It shows questions important enough for readers to act on. Questions they can't find an easy answer on Google so they went to Quora.
My first result —Eek!
Does cyberpunk as a genre have a future? (damn I hope so!)
Mikolaj Lipinski's answer catches my eye, especially his last paragraph.
Cyberpunk 2077 game has potential to reignite public’s interests in the genre. If the game is a commercial success, then more companies will follow CD Projekt’s steps in order to answer market’s demand for more games, books, movies of this kind.
So mildly worried Zane googles further, because he remembers the launch didn't go so well for this game.
This is what I find next
How can I action this?
Learn about the state of the game and what fans were frustrated with and how they fixed this. What elements of the aesthetic or narrative did they change? I’ll focus on story elements because game mechanics or quality won’t tell us anything that we don’t know already. Just that quality of experience matters.
This could be a hype train I may want to jump on. Or not. Trends can be dangerous and building a career on one is problematic. But this could also be a way to take advantage of interest and higher search traffic.
Searching for Answers
Quora is curiosity made visible and great source of inspiration on how to innovate or differentiate your stories. To gain empathy for what readers are trying to understand or what they question about your genre.
Here are two examples
How could I action this?
My story world Escape Town is purposefully African, and very specifically South African. Because the original genre captured a “Yellow Peril” fear in the 80s and 90s when Asian, and particular Japanese tiger economies were so dominate. This was inherently racist and something I want to diversify away from. Because of my focus I could capture local readers looking for stories about their own city.
The punk aspect I’ve read is about subverting norms and showing up class differences and socio-economic inequality. Something my country is a world-leader in. My own goals are to highlight what could go wrong if nothing changed or if our inept politicians grew worse, with a sci-fi twist to it of course.
And so these reader questions can highlight for you your own stance in the genre, and how you want to express your own ideas. Learning about them could reveal much about you too.
But there’s so much information!
Capture what resonates
This is the single best piece of advice I’ve found so far in Tiago Forte’s Build a Second Brain. Capture only what makes you feel something. Capture what resonates, what sparks more questions, and what means something to you.
This rule of thumb helps you avoid capturing every little piece of data and creating a an overwhelming, messy, unactionable and thus useless reader persona.
Try these two questions
Does it excite you? Do you see possibilities? Do you want to do read or write more about it? Then save it. Why write about what bores you? You’ll just bore your reader too.
Can you action it? Although fiction is fuzzier in general, try capture only what you can do something with. Skip cool but superfluous information. How could I use this? Insights that define, inspire or distill. As above go with your gut.
These two razors help cut down what you capture in the moment. Focusing your attention on the overlap between what matters to your readers and what matters most to you.
AMA: Ask Me Anything
Let me know what you find in your searches.
Or if something stumps you and you’re not sure how to interpret it.
We can figure it out together. 🙂
Here comes that YouTube moment
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I really enjoyed this Zane.