My Ideal Reader ~ The Search Continues

(This is a little creepy.) 

I'm not bored because I have nothing to do. I'm bored because I have nothing I want to do. So, boredom, or avoidance, leads me down some unexpected roads. Tonight I decided to take a look at Goodreads to see if Running From Herself had any new reviews. My self-imposed rule remains: I'll only read new reviews if my book's overall rating increases (not likely) or stays the same. Luckily or unluckily, my novel's number of reviews hasn't changed.

But I did notice that one can look at a reviewer's profile and review history, unless the reviewer sets their profile to private. Here's the little bit I learned:

• One reviewer is set to private, so nothing to glean. She did give the novel four stars, though, so some demographic info would have been helpful.

• My one and only three-star reviewer has written four reviews. She really loves true crime, so she should be a person after my own heart. Too bad for me, I guess, that my novel is not that genre. I don't know why she picked my book to read, but it was probably a FreeBooksy choice, and maybe there weren't any true crime offerings that particular day. (Are there ever?) I could posit that she saw a bunch of true crime on my reading list, but I don't think I have a Goodreads reading list, and if I did, why would she look at mine? But anyway...Of the four books she's reviewed, the two true crime stories received four and five stars, then there's a romance that she rated even worse than my novel. So, this woman's reading choices are kind of all over the place. Thus, I can't pinpoint anything specific about her, other than she's from Iowa and she didn't like my book.

• The next reviewer is pretty prolific. She's reviewed 38 books and rated 178. The average of all the books she's read is 4.98, so she's a nice person who either likes everything or professes to. She reads romance almost exclusively, so I'm guessing she expected my novel to be one, too. This again points to the general confusion regarding what women's fiction is. However, she gave my novel five stars, so she was either okay with it not being a romance, or again, she was being nice. "One of the best novels I’ve read in quite awhile." The only demographic detail available is that she lives in Hot Springs National Park, AR. (Can one live in a national park? Maybe she's a park ranger?) Running From Herself actually includes a brief passage about Hot Springs, Arkansas; only because it was a stopover on the road trip from Texas back to Nashville. ( I looked at a map.) I know absolutely nothing about Hot Springs, so I hope all my Googling produced accurate details. 

•  Next is a 51-year-old from Spokane, WA. She's written 2,824 reviews! Much like the Arkansas park ranger, she's nice; generous in her ratings. She reads mostly romance, but some thrillers as well. Not sure how my novel snuck in there. She also gave Running From Herself five stars, although I notice that she lavishes praise on most books she's read. This reviewer is hard to get a handle on, since even the books she obviously didn't like (based on her review narrative), she still awarded four stars. In fact, four is the lowest she's gone. About my novel: "This was an absolutely beautiful story." I'll take that with a grain of salt, but it's still very much appreciated.

• Finally, there's my one and only super fan. This is the only person I sent an ARC to (I asked first if she was interested). She lives in the UK and has positively reviewed a couple of my other books. (She wants me to write a sequel to Running From Herself. 🤯 ) "SC" has rated 87 books and reviewed 51. While she does read romance, her reviews lean more to mysteries, which makes my novel an outlier. Unlike the other reviewers, she doesn't hesitate to bestow only three stars, which makes her reviews more legitimate in my mind. Every book can't be awesome. That said, her overall review average equals 4.72 stars.

 

With only five text reviews, it's pretty hard to get a handle on my ideal reader. I could look at the reviews for my other books, but why? To find out which demographic really dislikes them? That would not be helpful.

 

But the picture is becoming a bit less fuzzy: A park ranger in her fifties who resides either in the south or on the west coast and/or also in the UK. Thus, I can rule out basically the whole of the US as fans. 

I obviously need more data. My books can't only appeal to park rangers, although I can boast that few other writers are able to claim them. And I would say, therefore, that my fans are fearless. I once spent a sleepless night in a tent camper in Grand Teton National Park, convinced that a grizzly bear was sifting through a nearby garbage can, so while I'm not fearless, I'm glad that my fans are.

 

Now I actually want more reviews, just so I can research people. 

 

While I obviously have very few text reviews, this is how my book's current ranking works out:

 

Goodreads did remove the text of the one-star review, per my request, but the ranking remains. This is what the guy wrote:

 

"apparently the idiots have taken over Amazon They can't even track their own sales, although they did send what I asked for" 

 

Clearly, "Bill" is not smart enough to become a park ranger, and thus not eligible to join my fan club. His loss. 

 

ADDENDUM:

 

I took a glance at the profiles of some of my "raters" who wrote no accompanying text reviews. 

 

• A man in his mid-eighties (yes), according to his past reviews (he mentioned in a review from 2020 that he and his wife were in their eighties). Hey! I love it! A lot of people think that old people all suffer from dementia, but this guy is still actively reading. He gave my novel five stars, which does not, by the way, prove that he's brain-addled; just that he's a discerning reader. He angrily wrote in another review that he should be able to just rate a book and not provide a written critique. That's the thing about us old folks; we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

 

• A woman in Pennsylvania (my map is expanding!) who's in her late sixties also gave the novel five stars. Her reading list is long, but she's only rated 17 books. She has read a few romances, but seems to lean more toward contemporary fiction. I like her already. Admittedly, 76% of her ratings are five stars, but maybe she just chose exceptional books to read.

 

• Another five-star reviewer likes mysteries, specifically murder mysteries. There is no demographic information regarding this woman, but she basically rates every book as five stars. Lucky for me!

 

• I don't like outing reviewers, but I can't resist naming "Dave's Footwear". Maybe it's an inside joke. Dave is in Ontario, Canada (my globe is expanding!) He likes non-fiction and is an aspiring writer (per his reading list, which includes a book on how to write a novel). He's also former military (again, per his many non-fiction self-help books for military members). As a military guy, he doesn't mess with text reviews; instead he gets right to the point and jabs his finger on a star rating. Dave is a #1 top reader, per Goodreads, and a prolific one, with more than 12,000 ratings. He's also around my age or a bit older. I'm sensing a pattern here. (Oh, he also awarded my novel five stars.)

 

• Joanne likes Christmas---a lot. She also favors romance, so again...I know nothing about Joanne, except that she doesn't hesitate to award three stars, if warranted. (I got five!)

 

• Helen reads romance almost exclusively, but she'll dive into a cookbook now and then and obviously, other novels that aren't romance, although she probably thought mine was when she chose it. I'd like to know more about Helen, but alas...

 

• Melissa read a book titled, "I'm Too Young To Be Seventy" back in 2018, so you do the math. I thought (stupidly?) that making my main characters thirtysomethings would fool readers into thinking I'm young and hip. I apparently only fooled myself, as old codgers tend to do. Still, Old Melissa liked my novel and gave it five stars.

 

• Karen reads a lot of romance, but on the plus side, the books appear to be mostly from indie writers. You go, Karen! I, for one, am sick and tired of the name Karen being used as a pejorative. (The MC in one of my novellas is named Karen.) I'm finding a lot of romance readers choosing my book, which baffles me. Its blurb hints at a romance gone bad, but otherwise, the story is clearly more career oriented. Maybe people are assuming the bad romance will suddenly turn good and it'll turn into an old fashioned happily ever after. Nevertheless, Karen liked it enough to give it five stars.

 

• One of my four-star reviewers is only 50! She's in Indiana, a state that never crosses my mind (which other people say about North Dakota, so what do any of us know, really?) Oh, I just remembered---the bad guy in Lies and Love is from Indiana! I have no idea why. This reviewer used to write text reviews, but stopped, and I don't blame her. If you read a ton of books, like she appears to, you finally run out of things to say. Her average rating is 3.89, so my novel is "average", but I'll still take the four stars.

 

• My final four-star reviewer is drawn in by books with "death" in the title (a lot---I'm not exaggerating). One could think that's weird, but as a true crime fan, who's to say what's weird? Based on her reading preferences, I have no idea why she chose to read my novel (spoiler alert: no one dies). I can only surmise that some of these folks grabbed the book when it was offered for free, and figured, what's there to lose?  

 

Based on these additions, if I was to advertise again, which I won't, I would be wise to set my target age to 65+. And maybe throw something into the blurb about death (does career death count?) I do appreciate romance readers taking a chance on my novel, even if their expectations were off base. Granted, my cover doesn't conform to the women's fiction norm, but neither does it conform to the romance norm---at all. 

 

Defining an ideal reader is tough. I've had maybe three male readers, which was wholly unexpected. I shouldn't be so sexist. 

 

This was a fun dive. I really take none of it too seriously, but as a person who's curious about a lot of offbeat subjects, it was interesting to learn about these people. We geriatrics have to keep our minds active.