We’re all guilty of it. The obsessive refresh of the subscriber count. The small, sad dopamine hit from a new “like.” We spend 80% of our time chasing more readers.
But what if the handful of readers you already have are slipping away? What if I told you that you’re accidentally alienating the very readers most likely to pay you?
I call it the Mystery of the Phantom Reader, and it’s epidemic, especially for writers over 50. We’re one of the most experienced, wisest, and highest-value groups of creators out there, and we’re writing for ghosts. We’re tailoring our work for an imagined, younger audience—a 30-year-old scrolling TikTok, maybe—instead of our actual peers.
The algorithm isn’t your audience
We’re chasing the algorithm, checking stats every hour, running after gimmicks others espouse, which means we’re chasing the idea of a reader that the algorithm supposedly wants.
So, we speed up our writing. We use the latest trendy slang. We reference that Netflix show everyone’s supposedly watching. (Do you really watch Squid Games??) We write in all-short, choppy, one-sentence paragraphs because some 22-year-old guru told us “that’s how people read now.” And we include pictures of cute cats.
Our real-life, 55-year-old peer just wants to read something that gets them feels disconnected. They don’t see themselves in our work, so they leave. Quietly. No angry unsubscribe, just a silent drift. Maybe they’re even still on your list of subscribers, but they haven’t made a peep or read a whole post in months.
Here’s the real cost of this mistake.
That 55-year-old reader has disposable income. They have loyalty. They will buy the e-book, sign up for the paid course, and stick with you for years... if you’d just talk to them. Relatably. Like you’re their peer.
The Phantom Reader you’re chasing has no money and the attention span of a gnat. You are chasing pennies and ignoring a vault.