Writers Unbound

To Niche, or Not To Niche; That Is the Question
Working in a niche, or a small, specialized area of expertise, is an oft discussed issue in the freelance writing world. Should you limit yourself to a niche? Can you gain expertise status sooner? Will you get paid more? Is it harder or easier to find jobs? Will you find more work if you don’t limit yourself to one niche?
Important questions for a freelance writer. Jobs abound, but they are often low-paying. Extremely, insultingly low-paying. We need to know the best way to find and grab those higher paying jobs. We need to know the quickest route to credibility. So we think about being a niche writer. We know things in general, but most of us know a few special things, too, either from a hobby or a former job or our own personal interest.
But Is It a Real Question?
I think we have overcomplicated the matter just a wee bit, friends. Even if you don’t formally consider yourself a “niche writer,” every article you write does fit into one niche or another. (I have never typed niche this often in my life. The word is beginning to look strange to me now.) The question is not, “Will you be a niche writer?” but rather, “Will you have one niche or many?”
If you are a generalist (a non-nicher), then actually you are a writer who has managed to create credibility in several niches. That’s the way to go. Don’t limit yourself, but don’t call yourself a generalist. You are a writer proficient in several topics. Nothing can be completely general. As soon as you start writing more than a paragraph, you’re venturing into niche waters. And that’s good.
Don’t Limit Yourself
Accept the inevitability of the niche, but don’t feel that you have to pick just one. Developing expertise in only one tiny area is like putting all your money into one stock. It’s simply more prudent to spread the investment out a bit. On my website, I list my areas of expertise, a.k.a. niches. These are topics on which I have education and/or experience and/or published pieces.
How to Work the Niches
Do start with what you know, but don’t feel like you have to stop there. Pick something you know a lot about already, and start writing. Put a few articles up on your website or blog to show what you can do and what you know. Then start looking for writing jobs that could use your expertise. They might be a big broader than your specialty, but it’s a beginning. Take it. The more jobs you get, the more credibility you build. The more credibility you build, the more jobs you get. Once you’ve established yourself as an expert in one area, it’s a simple step to start doing the same in another.
Niche Leapfrogging
The easiest way to expand your expertise areas is to pick another topic that interests you and that is somehow related to the one in which you have already established yourself. Follow the same procedure: write some articles, get them out there, and start finding the jobs. Once you’ve covered one or two or three smaller areas in this way, you can expand your niche to a slightly broader heading which will open up more jobs. For example, if you’ve established credibility in herb gardening, and then in holistic medicine, and then in home nutrition, you’ve created an “umbrella niche” that establishes you as an expert in the larger category of natural health.
Voila. Niche is general. General is niche. Let us no more argue.

Make it a good day.

Image Credit: Brocco Lee.