Target Audience

My boss says I should be reaching out to big, creepy weirdos just like me!

 

Over the past 4 years, I have been performing a guess and check method to root out my target audience. I feel like I wasted a good deal of time targeting fringe epochs of the population, like goth and alternative types, video game enthusiasts, comic book readers and conspiracy theorists. 

These groups are laser focused on their interests. While there may be overlap with my work and their passions, I find that they more resent my intrusion into their culture than anything else.

What I need to find is people with casual interest in these sorts of things, but not fanatical devotion. I've done enough comicbook conventions to realize that Superhero movies aren't made for comic book aficionados, who know the character's height, weight, blood type and shoe size.

You hear nothing but gripes about how unfaithful the films are to the source material when you roam the convention floor. That's because the studios who produce these features realize that they need to reach out to a broader swath of the community. That is if they want to create a successful film for mass consumption.

Gene Simmons of KISS once said, that he had no interest in creating a niche band, that had a small, cultish group of devotees. He wanted to create a band that was the Coca Cola of rock and roll. That's precisely what I want to do with my work. I can feel the collective cringe of the artists I've spent the last few years fraternizing with. 

TARGET ACQUIRED!

In my new season of Creeping Wave Radio, I'm specifically targeting the young adult market. Though at 41, I'm obviously not a young adult, franchises like Twilight, True Blood, and The Hunger Games were all created by middle aged women like myself. 

These franchises don't really exclude older people from enjoying the material, because most of us remember what it was like to be this age. The idea is to evoke the beautiful memories of youth, like young love, rebellion and discovery. These can then be contrasted by the darker themes of adolescence and young adulthood, such as feeling like you're an outsider and that you will always be misunderstood.

One of the big critiques I got when I was submitting my original story in novel form was that I should repurpose it to be a young adult book. At the time I was incensed by the notion, but today i see the wisdom of it.

In Creeping Wave Radio, I'm targeting the young adult audience by creating a related sub plot with teenage characters. This intertwines with the main show's plot line. Through time travel, a device introduced last season, I've been able to set the story in 1995, when I would have been 15 years old. I can't really understand what life as a teenager would be like in the present.

The lead character, Napoleon Doom, is still 141 years old. However, due to a major error in judgement and drawing the offense of the Temporal Mitigation Agency (basically Time Cops), they are forced to serve out their time in 1995 as a Highschool History teacher.

Unfortunately, this highschool isn't a normal house of learning. It's run by disguised supernatural creatures, hoping to foster good relations between humans and cryptids. The faculty is always on the look out for students, about to come into "the change." It seems cryptids and humans both go through some awkward transformations during puberty, but some of them are more dangerous than others.

This keeps with the horror and fantasy themes established in the original plot of Creeping Wave Radio, as well as incorporating conspiracy theories. It also allows for a more broad exploration of young adult themes like isolation and being different. 

I've started revamping my website so it looks more like an online magazine than a storefront. Since an audio drama is basically an online play, I'd like to show more examples of my writing than my artwork. I feel like showing that I'm a capable writer will make people more inclined to give my audio drama a chance. 

Full Disclosure

I've really avoided writing about real life experiences. I've tried to always perpetuate a super friendly, slightly awakward, but relatable persona online. It's a complete and utter falsehood of course. 

In reality, I'm the quiet one who sits in the corner at parties. When you approach, more out of pity than interest, I'm polite and friendly. Then, something you said forces me to spontaneously quote Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sarte, William S. Burroughs or Isabelle Eberhardt. I try to hold it back, but it starts streaming out like torrents of vomit. You realize I'm a monstrous weirdo and you slowly back away. You were just looking to talk about the weather. 

I feel like maybe, instead of worrying about when my mask will inevitably slip, I should just write about things that interest me, thus attracting like minded sorts. The aforementioned authors aren't necessarily popular on the young adult circuit, but really, is there anyone who better understood the conundrum of adolescence than Sartre? He is after all the man who famously wrote that "Hell is Other People" in his play No Exit . What better description is there of highschool?

I've also started writing about incidents that have delayed my writing this season, since we won't be releasing on Halloween, as we usually do. I've written about personal experiences that have shaped my stories and started sharing who I am beyond my character.

I'm even considering usuing my legal name for the first time publicly since 2016. Using the name Napoleon Doom, as a nom de plume doesn't really denote someone who takes their work seriously. I'm still not completely sold on that, as I have a history of being stalked online. However, using a false name doesn't seem to have deterred that. I want this season to be the one where Creeping Wave finally comes into its own. 

I guess my target audience is disenfranchised, young adults, with obscure intellectual leanings. This includes goth and alternative types, comic book fans, gamers (after all, they did turn Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream into a video game) and even people fascinated by (but not devoted to) conspiracy theories.

At least, that's who I'm targeting for the now. We'll see how it goes.