You Don’t Always Need a Writing 'Niche' as a Freelance Writer
As a freelancer, you’ll regularly be told, “you’ve got to have a writing niche.” If you don’t know your writing niche, you can’t understand your ‘target audience’ or ‘target client’, and that’s just bad for business.
Right?
Well, maybe not.
As a freelance writer, I started by sticking to what I knew—namely, topics related to my work in career education, advice and guidance. As a new writer, this suited me well. I was able to use tangible, real-life examples and my own work experience to write content that was relatable and engaging.
As my work experience has developed, so have my writing topics. When I progressed into leadership roles, I started writing more about leadership and team management. I have an educational background and passion for psychology, so I started writing about emotional intelligence and positive psychology in the workplace and beyond. I work with young people on employability development, so I branched into writing about the future of work and future skills. I was confident I had found my writing niche and was happy to get stuck in, writing what I knew about.
Then something weird started happening.
Editors who saw my writing and liked it asked me to write some posts for them too. The thing was that some of the websites I was asked to write for weren’t related to my work or what I had been writing about previously. They didn’t match the writing ‘niche’ I had carved out for myself.
I started getting requests to write about early infant development, female fertility, health and well-being, and business communications. Start-ups were contacting me to write staff profiles and client success stories. I got asked to ghostwrite blog entries for a CEO in the tech industry.
What do you do when the client doesn’t match your niche?
I spent a while deliberating about whether I should take on the requests. They weren’t, after all, directly related to my own experience, and I wasn’t sure I could deliver what they wanted.
I’d read a lot of articles telling me that I needed a “niche” as a writer, and this would be key to my success. The advice said I had to know who my clients were and approach them with tangible evidence of my work to secure new clients to write for. But I had clients lining up - they just weren’t connected to my niche.
That’s when I realised: the advice I had been devouring? It wasn’t going to work for me.
I realised I could be a writer with an expanded interpretation of the ‘niche’ advice.
And I think that you can, too.
How does that work exactly?
There’s nothing wrong with having a niche, and over time, I’ve honed down the topics I write on to the ones I really love writing about. That said, not being wedded exclusively to these means when new opportunities, themes, or ideas come along, I feel confident about getting stuck into something fresh.
When it comes to writing, I’ve found it’s not so much what you’re writing about, but how well you can write. It’s about creating a voice and engaging the reader. That’s why many writers who can do this are embracing writing across a wide variety of topics and genres.
Many businesses want to run a blog, and they want content that’s engaging and proactive for their audience. They just don’t know how to write it.
That’s why when they come across writing they’ve been engaged by, they’re inclined to seek out who wrote it and ask them to help out.
There are some pretty great benefits to writing about a wide variety of topics:
1. You can build a reliable network
I’m at a point now that if an article topic takes my fancy, I can write it and know who to pitch it to with a good chance of success. Because I work with different editors who know I can deliver, they’ve started to put the ball into my court more; asking me what topics I think will be suitable for their audience or that I’d like to write about (which is excellent for me as a writer).
They’re also happy to refer me to other people in their network who are looking for an article or two (even better for me as a writer).
2. It challenges and builds you
It’s taught me to be a bit more thick-skinned!
Some editors are great and will give constructive guidance and work with you collaboratively to get a piece right. Others? Not so much.
But it all makes for a great life and writing experience. It’s helped me to develop a pretty thick skin, know when criticism is productive for me, and what I need to do to take it on board. It’s also taught me to know when to walk away from a client.
3. It makes you a better writer
It’s allowed me to work with different editors and other professionals, like marketing experts and content strategists, who’ve all given me valuable advice and lessons that have helped to shape me as a better writer. These are people I wouldn’t have engaged with if I had stuck to my niche, and I’ve learnt a lot about what great content versus great writing looks like.
It’s also helped me learn what questions I need to ask when a new client approaches me to determine if it’s going to be a good fit—for both of us.
Know Your Strengths But Stay Open to New Opportunities
I still write a lot of content around careers development, but more recently, I’ve allowed my two other significant passion areas to lead my writing and the clients I work with. These include psychology, health and wellbeing, lifestyle and culture on one side of the page, and writing, reading, book reviews, and interviewing authors on the other side.
Someone once asked me if that doesn’t ‘get too confusing’, but the truth is, it’s not confusing for me. I love all the writing I do (it hasn’t always been the way but that’s the lessons we have to learn!). I’m pretty content with the work I do as a writer and for me, that’s the most significant tick above anything else.
Ditching the writing niche advice and embracing new topics has been great for me, both professionally and personally.
It might be an excellent move for you, too.
