Lesson 1: Niche and Platform Selection

So you want to be an online writer?

Great!

The first step is to decide which writer you want to become:

• A niche writer.
• Not a niche writer.

Niche Writers

A niche is a specific topic you write about because you have extensive experience or interesting things to say in that space.

The popular writer Mark Manson writes about self-development, for example.

The other popular writer Ryan Holiday has carved out his own niche in stoicism.

Nicolas Cole calls this “choosing a category”. Choosing a category is the straightest way to establish yourself as a writer and to build an audience.

But over the long term, you may run out of things to say in your niche, or you may be bored writing about it.

You can always switch niches of course, but once you’ve established yourself as “the travel guy” or “the finance gal”, it’s hard to become something else.

The clear advantage niche writers have is in selling digital products.

If you write about finance, you’ll likely be able to sell finance-related Excel or Notion templates to your audience because you know they’re interested in that topic.

If you write about everything, you will hardly be able to sell because everyone will be interested in different things.

Non-Niche Writers

Non-niche writers write about everything. It’s the “opinion” or “column” writers, but not only.

In the short term, it’s harder to establish yourself as a non-niche writer; but in the long term, it will be nicer as you’ll have an unlimited number of topics to talk about.

Which One Should You Be?

That depends on your interests and whether those interests also interest other people.

Few people will be interested in the reproductive cycle of insects, for example. But many people will be interested in finance and investing.

Whatever niche you choose, you will also have to be an expert in that niche.

If you’re not an expert in anything, don’t choose a niche.

I am not a niche writer and this has been working well for me.

Don’t believe the people who tell you you “must choose a niche”.

This is not true.

What Niches Work Well?

1. Personal Finance
2. Health and Wellness
3. E-commerce and Online Business
4. Technology and Gadgets
5. Digital Marketing
6. Fashion and Beauty
7. Food and Cooking
8. Travel
9. Personal Development
10. Parenting and Family
11. Gaming
12. DIY and Home Improvement
13. Entertainment and Celebrity Gossip
14. Environment and Sustainability
15. Cryptocurrency and Blockchain

What Platforms Should You Choose

The best platforms are the platforms where your audience is.

Don’t mind the competition too much as the competition is rarely any good.

If you want to write, try:

• Medium/HubPage/Vocal Media/Simily
• Twitter
• Substack
• Your own blog
• LinkedIn

Platforms like Medium are by far the easiest to use because all you need is to write and wait for people to come and read you.

The platform takes care of the audience and the monetization for you.

Twitter is harder and will take much longer to build, but the monetization possibilities are also much better.

Substack is the logical extension of Twitter, and also enables you to monetize easily.

Your own blog will take at least two years to build; you’ll have to learn SEO; pay for hosting, and a bunch of other stuff.

Since AI is inexorably coming to destroy search and SEO, I don’t recommend people to have their own blogs, at least not in the beginning.

Finally, LinkedIn is great for everything work-related.

Conclusion

Writing online is like building a business: you have to write what people want to read and publish where they hang out.

Niche and platform selection are the first steps.

Choose a nice if there’s one topic you really want to talk about and that topic interests other people.

Don’t choose a niche otherwise.

Tomorrow, we will talk about what to write.

See you tomorrow!

Aure 🙂