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