I came up with a phrase that is germane to the question of audience. I want to put myself in the position of making my work accessible to "hundreds of people rather than dozens." Even "dozens" could be overoptimistic in some contexts, but I think the idea is clear enough. You don't have to be thinking about thousands of readers, but about hundreds.
The context is whether to include technical discussions of music in the book. To write for musicologists would be to write for dozens, considering that the subsection of musicologists interested in this particular topic would be extremely small. Among people in my own field, there are more potential readers. If not hundreds, at least scores.
1 comment:
Reminds me of two passages from Pound.
"The chief cause of false writing is economic. Many writers need or want money. These writers could be cured by an application of bank notes." (ABC of Reading)
"The lack of printed and exchangeable slips of paper corresponding to extant goods is at the root of bad taste, it is at the root not of bad musical composition, but at the root of the non-performance of the best music, ancient, modern and contemporary; it is at the root of the difficulty in printing good books when written.
The fear of change is very possibly a contributing cause. I don’t mean an honest and perspicacious fear of change, but a love of lolling and a cerebral fixation. But with a decent fiscal system the few hundred people who want work of first intensity could at any rate have it, whether it were supposed to leaven the mass or not." ("Murder by Capital")
I think you're right that writing for "hundreds" of people is a touchstone for quality.
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