How can I determine genre and target audience for my memoir/novel?

Question

I am writing a semi-memoir and semi-fictitious novel. My novel is a story which starts with educated, working-class married women and is divided into three parts.

In the first part, she is working on a virtual reality technology which is actually going to be an allegory to our modern consumer culture. I will be discussing a lot of philosophies like Plato, Baudrillard, etc., but meshed in a story.

In the second part, the main character gets divorced and suffers from clinical depression. Here I am going to write a lot about the state of mind of suicidally depressed people and the previous technology stuff will be no more. In this part, I am going to discuss the alternate nature of love and physical relationships.

In the third part, the main character travels to Eastern countries in search of higher meaning to life and I will be discussing all the Buddhist philosophies.

But all meshed up in a story.

So it's not entirely a fiction as it will be speaking of real-world science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality. It is also not a self-help book as I won't be directly telling the readers about these concepts. It's kind of a memoir of my own life of the last 5 years, but I am a man and I will be writing this as somebody else's story. So what exactly can be the genre?

Can I assume that my target audience will be women who are interested in philosophy and eastern religions and practices?

Answer 1

Your most important audience is yourself

The best way to write a novel that is exciting and meaningful to you. The more you care about it the more energy you'll put into it. That passion will help you sell the book as well, as people tend to assume that something people are passionate about is worth checking out themselves.

So don't worry about else is going to read your book, and focus on making it the best possible book for you.

Marketing is something that comes later, after the book is complete.

It can be important to remember that other people need to like your book as well in order for it to sell, but who is reading your book is less important. It's not to totally irrelevant - there are things you can do to make your novel more attractive to specific audience, but trying to target when you're not entirely sure who your audience is will do more harm than good. Once you have an audience you can worry about targeting to them.