When drafting your work, any good writer knows to plan for their audience, but are you remembering the people your audience plan to pass your work on to?
It’s not always the person you’ve intended to pick up the book that’ll be the one reading it. Books are passed along. People stumble across. Themes are universally shared amongst everyone with some interest. A children’s book is often read by an adult; a casual reader might happen upon a scientific document on snakes. Perhaps no major changes are needed — after all, your work was written with a purpose (audience included) — but with some minor tweaks, your work can become more accessible to a much wider range of people.
Figure out your secondary audience, and you’ll have figured out every component in editing that you'll need to cover. Imagine your primary audience is lending your work to a friend: a secondary audience. How can you cater to this person too?
Ask yourself:
• Does my work need a glossary?
• Am I giving enough details and should I be elaborating more on certain topics?
• Do my words and sentence structures draw both a primary and secondary audience in?
• Is my language too formal?
• Are my word choices or phrases going to offend any cultures?
• If my work is based online, have I made it accessible to anyone who might find it hard to read/see? (e.g. including an audio option; editable font size/colour)