When your audience isn’t responding to your work, don’t assume it’s your audience that’s the problem. Today I learned that if your craft sucks, then you can’t be mad at your audience.
If you start things late, offer poor quality items, or are unprofessional, then you have plenty of reasons why your audience doesn’t come to your events, buy your music, or purchase your books. It has nothing to do with the venue, time, or audience personality. I doubt it even has to do with your audience’s spending habits. I wholeheartedly believe that it has to do with quality.
Review your products and go through them with a fine-toothed comb. Ask yourself what your product is like. If you have a book, what are you talking about? Are you writing about the same tired subjects? Do you write about stereotypes or things that don’t fit your audience’s taste? Do you write on things that are irrelevant? Are you trying to make a point but come off as hateful or ranting?
All of that isn’t your audience’s fault, as the author, it’s your fault. As a writer, you most likely haven’t followed the rules of storytelling. You haven’t come up with clever ways to engage your audience and I think that makes you lazy — straight up.
The best way to fix the problem of poor audience engagement is to fix the problem of poor craftsmanship. A carpenter can’t blame his tools, just like a writer can’t (or shouldn’t) blame their audience for lacking education. That’s foolishness.