Niches For Riches

Tip Of The Day — Day 10 — To niche or not to niche?

This is part of a series of daily tips for writers which is published to share ideas and suggestions on our craft. Everyone will have different advice on how to write, so the tip below is just a personal selection which I hope you will find useful, and do share any of your own in the comments. I hope you find it useful.

The heading would be a good one if it actually rhymed properly, but there you go. Moving swiftly on, the tip for today is about the subject of niches, and whether they are a good idea to succeed as an author on Medium, and more generally as a writer.

It is one of those questions to which there is no easy answer, and conflicting advice, so this article will rehearse the pros and cons, so you can decide for yourself, along with some articles by other commentators for further reading.

In favour of niche writing — Some commentators on Medium recommend trying to target your writing at a particular niche, then you can build a reputation and expertise in that field, and along with that, a devoted following. By focusing effort on one thing, sometimes it is possible to be more effective than taking a scatter-gun approach.

Each of the large topic groups has a list of “Top Writers” who have built a reputation in their subject. Some examples of successful niche writers -

Eve Arnold — has built a reputation for advising writers on how to build a writing career alongside a day job until you can consider full-time writing. She has made it work for herself. Can she do the same for you? Eve sells a range of online courses though clearly there is no guarantee of return on investment.

Umair Haque — has cornered the market in political commentary and if doom and gloom is your thing, Umair is worth following.

Tim Denning — has cornered the market in personal development and entrepreneurship, and is one of the superstars of Medium in terms of follower numbers.

Ryan Holiday — another leading writer in the field of personal development and money management

Robin Wilding — humour is quite individual, but I love Robin’s individual and sparky style.

Disadvantages of niche writing — As so often, there are mixed views on this. Some recommend pitching articles in many different topic groups, to cast your net wide, as it is really unpredictable what you will catch. One of the disadvantages of niche writing is that many of us have numerous interests, and to have to restrict ourselves to a single subject can become boring and take all the fun out of writing. If it ceases to be fun, then why write? Another disadvantage of sticking with the same niche, is that readers may also get bored, and think, “Not another article on that again”!

Summary — This article is not going to recommend one approach or the other, as the decision is a personal one, and there is such conflicting advice.

One option that achieves the best of both worlds, would be to have one or two subjects that you concentrate on, but do the occasional article on something completely different.

There are also some writers on Medium with more than one account as another solution to this dilemma.

Further reading -

I hope you found this article useful, and do share any tips of your own in the comments.

Previous tips:

Day 1- The Notebook

Day 2 — Mind your language — learning new words —

Day 3 –Quotations

Day 4 — Dictionary and thesaurus —

Day 5 — Location —

Day 6 — Planning —

Day 7 — Reverse engineering success —

Day 8 — Choosing your subject —

Day 9 — Do your own research —