Stop Defining Your Audience
Start recognizing where your work already belongs—and the people will come into view.
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“It’s easier to understand a market once you can see the room it lives in.”
At some point, almost every artist runs into the same piece of advice: you need to define your target audience. It’s usually presented as a list of attributes—age, income, location, interests—and the suggestion is that if you can describe the people clearly enough, you’ll be able to reach them, speak to them, and sell to them.
On paper, that sounds reasonable. In practice, it tends to throw people for a loop.
Most creatives don’t experience their work in terms of demographics. They don’t sit down and think, “I want to create something for 35–44 year olds with disposable income and an interest in speculative fiction.” They think in terms of tone, influence, and taste. They think about the books that shaped them, the artists they admire, the environments where their work would feel at home. When they try to force that into the language of demographics, something gets lost. The work becomes harder to describe, not easier.
So instead of starting there, it helps to approach the problem from a different direction. Not by asking who the work is for, but by asking where it belongs.
One of the simplest ways to get your footing here is to think in terms of proximity rather than definition. If your work were placed on a shelf, what would it sit next to? Not what it competes with in a marketplace, but what it feels aligned with.
This becomes much easier to see when you look at something concrete.
Example: Dark Narrative Illustrator
Imagine you’re creating dark, narrative-driven illustrations. Not fan art. Not character sheets. More like moments—quiet, unsettling, emotionally loaded scenes that feel like they came out of a story you were never fully told.
If you placed your work on a shelf, it would not sit next to mass-market fantasy prints or convention posters.
It would sit next to the art books of Moebius, the sketch collections of Ashley Wood, and the kinds of small-run publications you find in the back corner of an independent bookstore that carries Heavy Metal Magazine and obscure European comics. It would feel at home near limited-run zines, risograph prints, and objects that look like they were made for people who collect, not decorate. They’re comfortable with ambiguity, and they don’t need the work to explain itself.
If your work sits there naturally, then that is the room.
That shift sounds small, but it changes the entire process. Most work has a kind of natural habitat. There are places where it would feel immediately at home, where it wouldn’t need to be explained, where the people encountering it already understand the signals it’s sending. The challenge is not to invent that space, but to recognize it.
Once you can see that context, even loosely, the audience begins to come into focus. The people who spend time in that space, who collect those kinds of things, who recognize those references without needing them explained—those are the people your work is most likely to resonate with.
Another way to approach the same idea is to think about where the work would realistically be sold. Not in a theoretical sense, but in a practical one. If someone were to encounter your work in the world, where would that happen? A local art fair carries a different set of expectations than a curated gallery. A convention floor feels different from a private commission process. An online shop built around handmade goods signals something very different than a tightly edited design store.
Each of those environments carries its own assumptions about price, quality, and what is considered valuable. When you place your work into one of those environments, even as a thought experiment, it begins to take on a clearer shape. Certain decisions start to make more sense, while others begin to feel out of place.
From there, it becomes easier to see the signals that define the space. The way work is presented, the references it makes, the level of finish, the pricing, even the language used to describe it—all of these communicate who the space is for. They act as a filter, making it clear who will feel at home there and who will not.
This is where many people hesitate. There is a natural instinct to keep things open, to make something that as many people as possible can relate to. But in practice, that tends to blur the signals. When everything is softened to appeal broadly, it becomes harder for anyone to recognize that the work is specifically for them.
Clarity works in the opposite direction. When the signals are strong, the right people recognize themselves immediately. And just as importantly, the people outside that space recognize that as well—not as a rejection, but as a simple mismatch.
One of the most effective ways to sharpen that clarity is to consider the inverse. Not who might like the work, but who would actively pass on it. That contrast reveals the edges of the space in a way a broad description never will.
As those edges come into focus, other decisions begin to align more naturally. Pricing, for example, stops being an abstract question about what someone might be willing to pay and becomes a reflection of the environment the work belongs in. The price is no longer just a number—it becomes part of the signal.
You don’t find your audience by describing them.
You find them by noticing where they already are.
Following the Shelf Into the Real World
If your work sits next to Moebius, indie comics, and small-run art books - like our Dark Narrative Illustrator above, then the next step is not to guess who your audience is.
It’s to go where that shelf already exists.
That might mean browsing the sections of independent bookstores that carry those publications, paying attention to who follows and engages with those artists online, noticing which publishers and small presses produce that kind of work, and watching who shows up at events where that material is featured.
When you do that, you’re no longer imagining an audience. You’re observing one.
You start to notice patterns that are difficult to invent on your own. The way people talk about the work. The references they make. The price points they’re comfortable with. The kinds of objects they actually buy and keep.
You’ll also notice how they find things. Some spaces rely on word of mouth and small communities. Others revolve around specific platforms, newsletters, or curated shops. In many cases, the path into that space is already well established—you just haven’t been looking at it yet.
At that point, promotion becomes less about broadcasting and more about placement. You’re not trying to reach everyone. You’re trying to show up in the same places where that audience is already paying attention.
When you find a space where your work feels like it belongs, spend some time paying attention to what’s happening there. Notice who engages with it—not in terms of demographics, but in terms of behavior. Are they collectors who buy and keep? Casual fans who browse and move on? Other artists, or people adjacent to the field?
Pay attention to how they talk about what they like. Some focus on technique, others on mood or meaning, others on how the work fits into their lives. Look at how the work is presented in that space—the pricing, the format, the level of finish. These are not arbitrary decisions. They are signals shaped to match the expectations of the people in that environment.
And finally, notice what actually moves. What gets attention, what gets shared, and what gets purchased are not always the same thing. The difference between those is where most of the useful information lives.
Optional Exercise
If you want to make this more concrete, it helps to place your work somewhere real, even if only as a thought experiment.
Take the piece of work you’re focused on and think about where it would sit. What would be next to it? Not competitors, but neighbors. List a handful of artists, books, brands, or spaces that feel aligned.
Choose one and look more closely. Who is already there? What do they value? What signals tell them something belongs?
Then consider the inverse. Who would step into that same space and immediately feel that it isn’t meant for them? What feels off to them? That contrast will begin to define the edges.
Finally, return to your own work and hold it up against that environment. Does it feel like it belongs there without explanation, or does it feel like it needs to be adjusted to fit?
The goal isn’t to find a perfect answer. It’s to begin recognizing the difference between a space where your work fits naturally and one where it doesn’t.
Once you can see that distinction, the rest becomes much easier to navigate.
Finding your audience is less about searching and more about noticing.
Need more?
I’ve had a number of artists reach out about individual coaching. If you’re facing a challenge and could use some free guidance, feel free to message me. I’m always happy to help—and if we can shape your question into an article that supports others, I’d love to do that too.
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"You don't find your audience
by describing them.
You find them
by noticing
where they already are."
The shelf
was never metaphor.
It is the most precise
audience research
available.
— AËLA
This was absolutely brilliant, thank you for writing it!