Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

Five Interviews: People Who Should but Don't Share this Need

Drawing conclusions based on

Who: Are there certain people or certain businesses that, although they share a lot in common with the others in your opportunity, nevertheless fall outside the boundary? Why?
What: At what point does the need you identified differ from another need? (Is thirst the same as hunger? Or is the desire to appear fashionable the same as the desire to be loved by others?)
Why: Is the underlying cause of the outsiders' need different than people who are inside the boundary?

#1 (a young adult who has other things on her mind and no room for reading)

Category: What

She just doesn't have time. Simple as that. She used to, when she was an elementary school kid and then time after that, but somewhere along the way schoolwork and social life became college studies and more time-exhausting drama that developed into a job and "a billion other things to multitask" in a way where leisure reading just doesn't cut it. She's not old; her age fits the bracket. And she likes to read, but either lacks time or energy or available content--one of the three. It was easier when titles actually trended and everyone knew which covers were flying off the shelves. Basically, she has other needs more important than leisure reading that displace it as a need from her life.

#2 (a young adult who just... doesn't need to read)

Category: Who

More specifically, a nice young adult reader who reads anything other than books: subtitles, texts, and cool blog posts. She has anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour devoted to leisure time before bed. She can use this to read posts online,  get updated with social media, or watch television. It's all easily there and readily available. Netflix is a button away and gives suggested shows, versus plowing through shelves of top sellers in hopes you land one to your liking. We're busy people in this day and age, and that thirty minutes of leisure time doesn't give her enough time to ask around for book suggestions, browse through a library, or go to a bookstore to do her own research on what she wants to read (or figure out what sagas have new continuities up for sale). She has other alternatives that require less effort to obtain.

#3 (a young adult reader who prefers nonfiction reads instead)

Category: Why

I know him really well, so it's okay for me to call him a nerd even though I'm guilty of reading everything he reads too. The nature of his need is different. Yes it's hard for him to find books every now and then but that's because he has highly specific interests, not any fault of availability or lack of representation in the nonfiction department (literally encyclopedias list everything about everything nonfiction, and there's countless books written about the same types of airplane or dinosaur). And redundancy isn't really an issue here, since there are hundreds of biographies out there on the same person (say for example George Washington or Walt Disney). He might be bored of reading the same trivia facts over and over, but that's to be expected and will change when new things start happening. It doesn't need to be facilitated.

#4 (a young adult reader who is super devoted to the same one fandom full-time)

Category: Who

She doesn't want anything new to read even if she needs to. School doesn't give credit for rereading the same book again and again for their daily reading-time to log in, and yet she merely hops back and forth between the sequels of one series that has been a longstanding favorite since her first read. She endorses it heavily: buys all the merchandise, knows every obscure tidbit of trivia fact about anything within those pages or out. She claims that even if she's past the point where each additional read no longer provides new insight to reveal what was once glanced over, she still enjoys living it out again anyways. I for one am not captivated once the element of surprise is gone, and thus I don't do much re-reading until I forget enough, but she is deeply rooted in the nostalgia factor. It's not a matter of leisure for her: she doesn't demand anything new because she apparently doesn't want to want something new. I can respect that kind of commitment (and hopefully I can get some faithfulness like that too, to be honest).

#5 (a young adult reader who only reads what she writes--so, a writer)

Category: Why

This interview was fun because she herself is an author wanting to get published. So yes, she does have and experience the need for diversification of this genre so that they might widen their margins of consideration when publishing selections to be distributed worldwide. But she does not personify the need--she spends all her time writing, not reading, so she did a trade-off that swaps general reading for proofreading her own works in progress. She also doesn't want the market to get flooded with an influx of new ideas and variations at once because then competition gets tough and paradoxically slims her chances of getting printed. Outside of standstill periods like this, it's really a constantly shifting highs-and-lows cycle with this, with little margins of opportunity.

 

inside the boundary		ouside the boundary
who is in	readers who need more fiction works for liesure reading	who is not	subject only to young adults and all young adults
what the need is	a different variety of plots and subgenres within YA fiction	what the need is not	more books printed
why the need exists	there are too many works circulating with the same basic outlines and archetypes	alternative explanations	substitute options available or a differing liking