4 November 2019
The secret to selling a book is understanding its readers and how to deliver on their expectations. Though knowledge of readers is most often discussed in relation to nonfiction work, it also affects writers of literary fiction, even if they say they write for no one but themselves: in those cases, the artist becomes a readership of one, with expectations and aspirations for the art they produce. How the story is told, how challenging it will be, and what traditions it will draw upon-all these imply a particular readership who will evaluate the work accordingly.
