Middle-Aged Men Might Be The Target Audience. Now What?

Middle-aged men  seem to like my one novel, The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy.  This makes sense since I’m a middle-aged (or slightly older) guy and the narrator is a middle-aged man looking back on an event from decades ago.  That approach might not appeal as much to women who seem to read most romantic comedies as it does for a middle-aged man, but I understand that.

I know The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy has some appeal to middle-aged men because middle-aged men have finished reading the book and sometimes finish it kind of quickly.  They’ve also been initiating conversations with me about it after they’ve read it.

Honestly, I was expecting to get no reaction from people who bought (or were given) my book.  I figured most people were being polite and would just put the book someplace and let it disappear after a while. 

Now that I’m sure that The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy has a target audience, I wonder how to get more middle-aged men to read the book. As much as I like my orange book cover, I can see that it might not have the greatest appeal to the average middle-aged (or slightly older) male reader.

I was thinking of maybe changing the cover illustration to a more Frank Frazetta-ish style.

Frank Frazetta was an illustrator known for his paintings of heroic fantasy images. Most of my favorite fantasy and sword & sorcery books that I bought in the 1970s and 1980s had Frank Frazetta covers. Sometimes I would knowingly buy a crappy book just because Frank Frazetta had done the cover. Most of the middle-aged (or slightly older) men who’ve read The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy know who Frank Frazetta was… but I don’t think it’s necessary information for you to know in order to enjoy reading The Sunset Rises.

Frank Frazetta died about 15 years ago, so I can’t hire him to illustrate a new version of my book cover. Even if he were still alive, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford his services. I’m doing okay financially (for now), but I’m not sure I’m doing that okay.  

Even though a Frank Frazetta type cover might attract a subgroup of middle-aged men (and maybe even some young men), it would probably turn off a bunch of potential female readers. I’m not 100% sure of that, but I’m pretty close to sure. A few women have read The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy, and the response has been more mixed (a combination of no reactions, positive reactions, and a couple accusations of my being misogynistic). Since middle-aged men have been more consistent, I’m confident they could be my target audience.

Just so middle-aged male readers know, there are no explicitly sexual scenes in The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy. I’m sorry if that disappoints any potential readers. There is one ‘turn off the lights’ scene that almost gets explicit, and there are a bunch of sexual references and innuendoes, but I’ve seen worse (‘worse’ might not be the right word, but you know what I mean) in mainstream romance novels. And don’t get me started about what I’ve seen in ‘romanticies.’

I probably should have figured out my target audience before I published my book, but I do things out of order sometimes.  The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is probably the only novel that I’m going to write, so I have the rest of my life to market/sell it.  It’s not like I’m moving on to another novel that I’m selling in six months.  This is a one-of-a-kind book, so I can take my time. 

By the way, I’m probably not going to change my book cover.

Hey middle-aged (or slightly older) men, you might like my one book, The Sunset Rises, A 1990s Romantic Comedy!

*****

A grammar-obsessed English teacher falls in ‘luuuvvv’ but discovers how chaotic and dangerous ‘luuuvvv’ can be.

Or you can buy a copy here on Amazon!

Not sure? Read a sample chapter of The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy.