One more LinkedIn learning, and I once again lost track of the advice, meaning I can’t thank the author personally. Bad Troim.

Anyway, I do recall the advice: “Know your target audience. ”

Well, this is either very easy or borderline impossible.

At first glance it’s a no-brainer: I’m the target audience. I’m first and foremost entertaining myself. Know this sounds like the admission of a bad neurosis. Bad luck. I’m having fun writing stupid stories in bad English. I need to practice my third language for day job purposes, and this is even more fun than reading The Guardian and The Economist, listening to npr and watching CNN or BBC World.

The author of the advice assumes that any writer longs for as large an audience as possible. For purse and/or pride reasons. Let’s pretend for a second to be affected by this particular delusion.

If what is supposed to be my target audience shares traits with me, the following preferences prevail:

• Escapism through entertainment: Laugh and puzzle good. Deep thoughts bad, unless they come in light doses and funny wraps.
• Linguistic simplicity: Fine to occasionally need Google translate  and reread some sentences. ‘Occasionally’. ‘Some’.
• Race, gender and class stereotypes as well as gross violence, especially torture, are no entertainment, they are plain yuck. 

Simple preferences.  But how to find people sharing them? This list doesn’t easily translate into conventional sociological categories. I’ll settle for knowing my audience’s preferences without having the slightest clue how to reach it.