Where to Find Your Book Buying Audience
An Example Featuring Author Peter Swanson
Where to Find Your Book Buying Audience - Research By Example
Peter Swanson is the author of The Kind Worth Killing, The Kind Worth Saving and A Talent For Murder Series plus nine other novels. He is a Sunday Times and New York Times best selling, award-winning author. His latest, Kill Your Darlings released June 10, 2025. He lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with his wife.
Let’s use the successful novelist, Peter Swanson, as an example of one of the ways for you to identify and find possible book buyers for your book’s genre.
Mr. Swanson writes mystery, suspense, crime novels. If you also write mystery, suspense, crime novels, you could learn where your shared book buying audience hangs out and then pitch yourself (interview) or your book (review, mention) to those same places to promote YOUR book.
Here is the example:
Author: Peter Swanson
Genre: mystery, suspense, crime
Question: Where Does Peter Swanson’s Audience Hang Out?
We can find a clue to the answer this question by searching Mr. Swanson’s interviews on google. I simply typed “Peter Swanson Book Interview” in the search bar and got a bunch of hits. Let’s take a look at just one of the hits to see what we can discover about his audience.
CrimeReads.com https://crimereads.com/shop-talk-peter-swanson-on-why-hell-never-outline-a-mystery-novel-again/
CrimeReads is a very cool site where lovers of crime writing (book buyers) can be found.
What could an author do with such a site to reach THEIR audience members?
Pitch an author interview - you are a crime writer!
Offer an article to be posted to the site with your byline as Author of (your book)
Place an ad on the site highlighting your book
Research the site to see if CrimeReads.com offers eblast ads to their readership.
Poke around the site - learn what crime/mystery/suspense readers are interested in, what are they doing, what are the trends
Consider sending a galley of your NEXT book to the editors of the site for possible mention, interview or story - ie. Add the contact to your media contact spreadsheet (for more on media contacts try my posts here and here)
Your homework:
Here’s another interview. See what you can find to add to your research to potentially find your ‘crime, mystery’ reading audience! Have fun with it.
Author Interview with the Los Angeles Public Library:
https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/interview-author-peter-swanson
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Author Highlight - FunFacts about Peter Swanson for fans of crime, suspense, mystery books.
The Kind Worth Killing, a novel by Peter Swanson, features a murder mystery starring a limerick-writing detective and an intriguing relationship between the detective and his suspect. The title and the book cover are pretty great, too. Luckily, there are two more books in the series mentioned above - The Kind Worth Saving and A Talent for Murder.
Peter Swanson fun facts:
** He was 44 when his first book was published (it wasn’t the first book he wrote, btw) in 2014 titled the The Girl With A Clock For A Heart. it’s never too late to start to write your book!
** Today, Mr. Swanson makes his living from writing novels!
** He is a voracious reader.
** He loved true crime novel and mystery/suspense from a young age.
** He snuck paperback copies of books like Jaws and A Kiss Before Dying from the books his parents left around the house.
A snippet From his CrimeReads.com interview - I really dig this answer - regarding his theory on POV.
“EC: How do you make that choice?
PS: Well, if it’s going to be in first person, you need to justify that choice. Authors should do that more often. Why is this particular person telling this particular story? Literally.”
EC: How do you make that choice?
PS: Well, if it’s going to be in first person, you need to justify that choice. Authors should do that more often. Why is this particular person telling this particular story? Literally.
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The idea of googling a comparable author and "interview" is so simple but so clever! Totally gonna try that in my own category/genre.