First of all, I think we can ssume that , on the whole, servants didn't read very much- certainly not novels. Novel-reading was something done by the leisured classes- often as a group activity. Servants might overhear bits, but that's about it. Likewise, although the higher aristocracy did, I am sure, read novels, they did have rather a bad reputation- for turning the heads of the gentry's daughters,and giving them too many ideas.In other words, there was a strong association between the gentry and novel-reading.

On the assumption that JA wrote for her own family first, and for friends and relatives second, I'd say that she had a definite "gentry" market in mind when she started.And she defintiely did want toget published- those jokes about writing "only for fame, not for pecuniary emolument" have a ring of truth about them

Maybe Donald and I have a differing idea of the word "market". If I rephrase to state that JA wrote with the idea of entertaining people of her own caste and thinking, first inside her family and then outside it, would that be acceptable? If she wasn't literally thinknig abotu her "market", then she was definitely thinking of her audience?