At Wise Ink, we talk a lot about a book’s audience. We push writers to know exactly who they’re writing for, including the age, sex, location, income, education level, and marital status of their readers. Not only does this knowledge enable you to tighten your composition, but it makes it easier to market your book once it’s published.
However, a writer’s awareness of who their audience is is only half of what they need to know. A writer must also understand what their audience is: an active or a passive reader. An active reader consumes content like someone would consume food at a five-course banquet: purposefully and leisurely. A passive reader, on the other hand, can be likened to a party-goer who snacks on hors d’oeuvres: they consume content in short bursts, without making it the main focus of their night.
No matter what their background, every reader in the world can be classified as either a passive or an active reader. As an author, it is your job to create content that pleases whichever type of reader you’re writing to.
You might remember from school that being a passive reader is a bad thing. This is not the case in the book world. We live in an age where there is an infinite amount of content and knowledge available at our fingertips, and so the quick-scan style of the passive reader is becoming necessary for a lot of people who spend time on the internet, and this habit extends to their book-reading.
The content of your book and the way in which you present information should reflect the style of the reader you hope to attract.
A passive reader
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Consumes content quickly
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Accepts information you present at face value
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Has a short attention span
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Will jump ahead during boring sections of a book
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Ignores points that take a long time to understand
With these readers, your main focus should be on streamlining the process of information exchange. Make your writing high-energy, clean, logical, and easy to glean information from, but avoid being hasty. A lot of writers try to fit too much content into not enough pages, and this will make passive readers put down your book and never touch it again. Be clear, but don’t make them work too hard to understand what you’re trying to say.
The genres of books for passive readers are not cut-and-dry. It’s important that you pick the type of reader you want based on your book’s particular mission.
For example, a business book for passive the passive reader would be a short, conversational, airplane read of leadership tactics that busy professionals can read with a limited schedule.
A self-help book that would appeal to passive readers would be organized into easy-to-read sections that focus on a series of easy-to-follow steps to meet people in a new city.
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Consumes content deliberately and slowly
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Will constantly question your authority as a writer
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Is less likely to bore quickly
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Will read every word
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Questions their own comprehension
When writing for this reader, you have a little more leeway in your prose. You can be a little more complicated in your expression. You can explain a little more deeply, and be more confident that your reader will know what you’re talking about if you reference something from a previous chapter. However, writing for an active reader does not give you license to forget about streamlined organization and clarity of content! Appreciate that your readers will work hard to engage with your work and don’t make it too hard on them!
An example of a business book aimed at the active reader would be an in-depth, analytical book dissecting marketing tactics of successful corporations
A self-help book fit for an active audience would be a widely-focused, integrated book that breaks down the introvert/extravert dichotomy and teaches the reader how to be both.
Readers, can you get active and tell us what kind of consumer are you writing for, and why?
Interesting post. I’ve not thought this one through before, but it’s clear I’m an active reader. As I look at my writing, both “Alive in the Storm” and my current work-in-progress are written for active readers. Guess that happened naturally. You’ve given me good food for thought as this next book goes into editing. Thanks!
Thanks for the comment Sylvia! Great to hear from you. I was curious if we’d get any “active” readers out there to comment b/c I know so many of us “skim.” Happy editing
I’m definitely an active reader. Rarely skim anything – even read appliance manuals – don’t tell anyone!
Hi Marilyn,
That’s so funny. We need you active readers as much as the passive readers. If you think about it, a majority of writers would probably prefer YOU — an active reader.
Definitely seeking active readers!!! The goal is to open up my genre to a whole new audience, add a few twist and introduce a character worthy of a trilogy. Then do another trilogy on her ancestor.