Do Writers Need to Have a Niche?

To niche or not to niche? That is the million dollar question.

It’s an endless debate among those of us who want to create or write for a living. The experts continually tell us to niche down if we want to make any real money with our ventures.

But is niching down the best way to go?

When I first started blogging in 2005 I wrote about everything. My audience was diverse, we had lots of meaningful conversations, and it was a truly rewarding effort even though it was never monetized.

Then websites like Copyblogger and others started the push for writers and creative to choose a niche.

Obviously the idea was people should focus on building a brand and becoming the go-to expert in their own field of interest. If you become known for one thing you will always have an income.

What they taught was a solid blueprint for success. It definitely worked!

I eventually switched my focus to branding because it was a topic I was very passionate about and an expert in.

Looking back I can see how choosing a niche opened the doors for lots of client work and speaking opportunities. My status as the “branding dude” really started to take off.

Despite my rising success I was also bored with it.

What about life? Culture, marriage, sex, spirituality, music, art, travel, and other exciting topics that need to be talked about?

So the options were to completely fuck up the road to success blueprint or start a dozen niche blogs about other topics to alleviate that debacle. I did that later and it was completely exhausting and expensive.

The struggle to write became very real.

My love for exploring other topics also brought on another challenge.

What do I tell people I do for a living?

When you have such a diversity of interests and online businesses, it makes it really difficult to give an elevator pitch. Plus when you’re main bread winning focus is different than what you communicate, it confuses people.

And surprisingly, telling people you’re a serial entrepreneur often makes them perceive you as a serial killer! That’s not good for business.

Work opportunities dry up quickly when you’re multi-faceted.

Clients often want to work with a specialist, not a generalist. The downside is when you’re specialty is becomes obsolete or is no longer needed, then you’re fucked because you have to start over.

Sometimes it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Now I could’ve said I’m a writer, but what kind of writer? We see that those who choose a path do very well. Think about the niche topics for writing.

Fiction. Stoicism. Copywriting. Mystery. Romance. Productivity. Sex.

Who comes to mind when you think about those subjects?

J.K. Rowling, Ryan Holiday, Ray Edwards, James Patterson, Danielle Steele, Tim Ferris, Doctor Ruth.

Now, can you think of any writers who write about several topics who also seem to be successful doing so? Probably not.

I bet many of these creatives desire to create work that’s outside their realm of notoriety. They probably get bored about their niche too. Spending 30 years writing about mysteries or productivity would kill my soul!

Buy maybe they’re different.

When I started this article this morning, it was about my own mental struggle with what I want to write about vs. what I should write about.

Sometimes they are both, often they are not.

I think what I’ve written here answers the question whether a writer should choose a niche to focus on in order to be successful. But then I’ve always believed rules are meant to be broken.

Now I want to ask you what you think.

Writing on Medium is somewhat different than writing a book or on your own personal website. This platform gives all of us the opportunity to explore and write about whatever we want.

Should we niche down or open the doors for something more?