Writing for and to Readers

A few weeks ago I was surprised to learn that some of us don't write for readers but for ourselves. I was  surprised because my first professional writing job at age 16 came with but one piece of advice: Know your readers and write for them. As I moved through the writing ranks, from reporter to columnist to feature writer to freelance writer to editor to marketing VP, that advice was the gospel among those I worked with.

And then I penned a piece for the Daily Fix called 10 Tips for Keeping Your Blog Fresh, in which I offered this: "Finally, write for readers, not links. When we write for readers, we create words and ideas that are authentic, heart-felt, credible and worth reading. Readers are the audience, and in writing for our audience, the links will come. Going back to my first professional writing job, my editor told me repeatedly to write for readers, not for myself. All of my subsequent editors ensured that I remembered that lesson."

Several commenters disagreed, saying they write for themselves, what interests them, not for their readers. To some extent I think we are saying the same thing. Except when writing on assignment, and even sometimes then, all writers write about what they know and what interests them. But when they are writing, they have readers in mind. They know who those readers are, what their readability levels are, and what inspires those readers to go beyond the headline into the body of the story.

I relate writing to marketing in almost every way. To be successful, we first must determine the ideal audience (customer or client) and understand their wants and needs. And then we must provide a solution for those wants and needs, or the audience will go elsewhere. We must communicate in our audience's language, in a style that meets their needs and in a way that makes sense and is clear to them. If we don't, our messages will not be read. And that includes whether we are creating marketing messages, advertising copy, web site content, magazine articles, newspaper Op-Eds, fiction or non-fiction. If we want to be read, we need to write for the audience that we are trying to reach. But beyond that, we also need to write for the medium(s) that we are using to reach that audience.

Styles, length, vernacular, and even language must be created somewhat differently for every medium. A magazine article for Travel & Leisure will be different from one on the same topic written for the LA Times. The magazine article should be written for readers sipping wine, sitting in their favorite chair, with the fireplace blazing. The newspaper article should be written for someone taking a break at work, or commuting by train, or flying to a business meeting. The styles and the length will vary because of the reader's wants and needs.

In closing, as in marketing, writers can write for themselves and create a niche market. Or they can write for readers for which there already is a market. I have been on both sides of that equation, and in my experience, creating products and services where no market already exists is far less likely to succeed than meeting a current market's wants and needs.

But you be the judge. Think about the pros and cons of the two strategies. What is you end-game?