30,000 Reasons Writers Should Niche Their Medium Content

The Medium space is chock-full of writers. If you want to grow you’ve got to show.

I’ve been a niche-writer since day-one on Medium. Some writers do well writing broad, but I believe, if you want to compete with the 30,000 other active, paid writers on Medium — it’s time to go niche.

Why?

Because the new payment model is bent-around the idea of benefiting niche writers. You’ll earn more money if you captivate readers around a particular niche.

They want experts to share their expertise. They want influencers to influence. They want you to grow so they can grow.

So here’s the thing — last count there are approximately 30,000 active, paid writers on Medium. This means you’re in competition with 30,000 other writers for your reader’s attention.

You get around a half-cent a minute for their reading time. Some more. Some less. Those half-cents add up if you keep that reader engaged in a particular topic.

Me, I write to help writers and creators who want to make work that sells and sell more of that work once it’s made.

This gives me a wide berth withing which to develop my content, but not infinite. I stay in my lane and slowly grow my following. This helps me become a dominant voice in my niche.

When you become a dominant voice, you’re no longer competing with 30,000 writers. It brings down the number considerably. I now compete for eyeballs with less than twenty writers.

When you niche you close the door to all the others.

In a second, I’ll show you how to grow you niche following as big as possible. Then, I’ll show you how to expand beyond Medium for an even-bigger reach into your niche.

Close the doors and grow your indie niche

When you choose a niche you close the doors on the rest of the writing opportunities. While some writers might feel this stifling, I thinks it’s freeing.

Your niche creates a little box around your content. The niche pre-decides a thousand little questions for you. This helps you create content faster. Does you idea serve your readers or not? No? OK. Next idea.

When you have a niche, you develop a reputation.

You become the writer who…

Not only does your niche allow you to display your expertise, but it also positions all your content with laser-sharp focus towards one target — your email list.

Not only will we get paid from our niche content here, on Medium, but we’ll use this content to grow our own tribe of people — a tribe we own and control the delivery system. This is our tollbooth position in the writing community.

Once you build a niche you’re known for, you’ll soon be in competition with zero out of 30,000 writers. If a reader wants something specific you deliver, the only place she can go is your content.

Yes, we’re all writers. It’s not like this is war or anything. Almost everyone on Medium is kind, save for the people who aren’t. But the unkind won’t do well with this new payment plan.

Who wants to read a bunch of down, Negative Ned content to start their day?

The more you prove to your niche that you know what you’re talking about, the more readers will engage, and the faster you’ll grow your following. Readers will see you name all over a particular topic. They can’t help but follow you so they won’t miss your next piece of content.

Then, we move to the big guns…

Your list will set you free

While it’s not the answer to all a writer’s woes, your email list is most of the answer. Medium is a social site. Social likes novelty. If you want to play the game here, you’ve also got to agree to ride the never-ending wheel of content.

The more content we generate, the larger our reach inside our niche (ooh sweet rhyme).

Once you do commit to the platform, if you want to grow, you’ve got to publish all the time. Like — daily. Or a few times a day. It’s not for every writer, for sure.

The strenuous publishing schedule is sure to burn-out many writers. But it might be perfect for your niche.

The last thing you want is to lose a reader once you’ve won her affection. We keep our readers coming back with email. Email is the great equalizer. And a fantastic insurance policy against, well, I don’t know — payment changes on your favorite platform.

We could lose all our Medium income overnight.

But they’ll only take our email list from our cold, dead hands (or something like that).

If you want to get your first 1,000 (or your next 1,000) readers without spending a hot nickel on ads, I’ve got a free Tribe 1K email masterclass for you. Tap the thingy and you’ll get the first lesson today.

Enroll in my Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.