Who are you really writing for?
When academics decide to write for a broader audience, one of the first bits of advice they hear is: “Know your reader.” But for those of us trained to write for committees, peer reviewers, and specialist colleagues, that advice can feel… vague. Who is the “general reader,” anyway?
Let’s unpack that—and talk about how thinking carefully (and realistically) about your audience can transform not just how you write, but what you choose to say.
The Myth of the General Reader
Let’s start by clearing something up: there’s no such thing as a truly “general” reader.
Nobody picks up a book with zero context, zero curiosity and zero expectations. What people call the “general reader” is really a specific kind of reader: someone who’s smart, curious, and engaged—but not trained in your discipline. They may be an avid reader of history or sociology or literary nonfiction. They may listen to podcasts, subscribe to the New Yorker, or follow public thinkers online. What they don’t have is a working familiarity with your field’s internal debates, its theoretical jargon or its unspoken assumptions.
That doesn’t mean they’re unintelligent. It just means they’re not insiders. And that’s a crucial distinction.
You’ve Already Met This Reader—They Just Don’t Know It Yet
Here’s the good news: you already know how to write for this person. You’ve done it at conferences, in classrooms, at dinner parties. Every time you’ve explained your research to an engaged undergraduate, a colleague from another department or a relative who asks what your book is about—you’ve practiced translating your expertise into human terms.
The challenge is sustaining that translation across a whole book, essay or article—and doing it without slipping back into habits designed for gatekeepers rather than readers.
So how do you write with the general reader in mind?
Three Useful Questions
1. What problem does your book help the reader solve—or what curiosity does it satisfy?
Popular nonfiction often starts with a felt need. That might be a big question (“How did we get so politically polarized?”), a personal curiosity (“Why do we remember certain songs forever?”), or a social concern (“Why is higher education losing public trust?”).
Knowing what your book gives the reader—insight, clarity, tools to think differently—helps you shape your message, not just your method.
2. What will the reader not know coming in?
This isn’t about assuming ignorance—it’s about recognizing distance. Don’t assume they know who Bourdieu is. Don’t assume they understand what “methodology” means in your field. That doesn’t mean you avoid complex ideas—it means you introduce them in context, with care.
3. Why should this matter to them—now?
Academics are trained to care about internal debates. Popular readers want to know why something matters in real life, in real time. Your job isn’t to talk down to them—it’s to bring them into a conversation they might not know they’re already part of.
Build a Composite Reader
One of the most practical tools for keeping your audience in view is to invent a “composite reader”: a mental model of someone who might genuinely pick up your book. Maybe it’s a curious high school teacher. Maybe it’s a policy journalist. Maybe it’s your former self, before grad school.
Write to that person—not to the academic reviewers who live in your head.
Clarity Isn’t Compromise
This is the part that scares many scholars: the idea that if you make something readable, you’re inevitably making it simplistic. But clarity isn’t a betrayal of complexity—it’s a sign that you understand your ideas deeply enough to communicate them cleanly.
Writing for a general audience means moving from “proving that you’re smart” to helping the reader feel smart. It’s a shift in ethos, not a downgrade in quality.
Next Up: Structure
Now that we’ve started thinking about who you’re writing for, the next step is thinking about how to shape your material to meet them. Next week, we’ll talk about one of the biggest adjustments for scholars writing trade books: rethinking the structure of your work.
Spoiler alert: it’s not about chapters that mirror journal articles. It’s about momentum, movement and meaning.