An Open Letter To Andrea Carter

I received an email today. The subject line read, "Cheff Salad". The letter read as follows:


Hi Kevin,

I just posted an article on my blog entitled “Healthy Doesn’t Have to be Boring: 15 Innovative Salad Ideas” at [redacted] . Anyway I figured I’d bring it to your attention in case you thought it interesting enough to drop a quick mention on your site about it as I’m trying to increase readership of my blog.

Either way, hope you have a good week.

Thanks,

Andrea Carter


To Ms. Carter:
I carefully considered your request, and denied it.  You see, I don't think my readers really give a crap about your recipes.  My blog, despite its name, has nothing to do with foodstuffs.  It's about writing and life.  If you had paid even the most minute of attention, you would have noticed that.

Then again, it's pretty obvious that you didn't pay much attention.  I have no idea why you are so attracted to my 18 followers, the majority of whom do not actually visit with any regularity.  Way to shoot for the stars there, Andy.

I do wish you all the best.  Maybe one of the other bloggers you spammed while hitting the Next Blog button was more responsive to your solicitation.  When you do make it big, remember that I totally acknowledged your existence and chose to not redact your blog title.  Although I did it so my readers would know exactly why I was deriding you, it did allow them to actually google your name and blog, so it's not entirely impossible that you scored some major readers right there.


To my faithful and loyal readers:
This is what your teachers meant when they said that you have to know your audience.  Whether you are selling your ideas to one person or a million people, you have to know them.  No matter how many people you want to read your stuff, you can't just say that the target audience is everybody.  No matter how general or how generally acceptable your content is, it does have some kind of focus.  Know your focus and market yourself based on that focus.  It's the best way to be seen by the right people.

It's also a great way to not get made fun of.