The Benefits of Niche Writing

Posted by Lorren on February 7, 2010

If you are a writer like me, you might have heard that writing about “niche topics” is a good idea. At first, the idea sounds illogical. Why would you want to write about a topic that very few people are interested in? That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. I write in three niche areas, and while I have received benefits of writing in all of them, I don’t consider these topics to be ones that nobody is interested in.

I have learned that as a writer, I benefit from writing about the same topic over and over. I sort of fell into my first niche, Survivor, without even trying. It has been my most profitable topic as a freelance writer so far. I write episode recaps on every episode, and I usually try to come up with a preview of the season to come before the season comes out (and if I can find a leak and write about the season before CBS makes its official announcement, even better). By consistently writing in that niche, I can link all my articles together, which allows people to surf among what I’ve written. People also know that I’ll always have a recap available (generally by the next morning) of the episode that aired the night before.

The second niche topic I write about is car reviews. I didn’t really choose that topic, I work for the company that owns Automobile.com, and they give me plenty of work. Since I get paid by the review, I get the most short-term gain, but it doesn’t give me a stream of continuous income like writing for myself does. It’s amazing what you can learn about a subject by researching the topic and writing about it for hours every week. While in the past, I never really paid too much attention about cars (except Mustangs, my dream automobile), I can now look at many cars and tell you something about them; how powerful that truck is, whether the car you bought is the base model or an upgrade, etc. While watching a 60 Minutes interview with Shawn White earlier today on Tivo, I noticed that Shawn had a Lamborghini Murcielago… they mentioned on the show that it was a Lamborghini, but I could just tell by looking at the car that it was a Murcielago: I could tell you the approximate price Shawn paid for the car, and how fast it goes, as well.

The third niche topic that I write about is the Olympics. I wrote my first Olympics web page, on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, nearly a year ago. Tickets hadn’t gone on sale yet at that point. I’ve always been a fan of the Olympics, even though I don’t really care for traditional sports like football or baseball. After I wrote about Vancouver, I started writing about the other future Olympics. I then figured out that there were limitless things to say about the Olympics, considering that they’ve been around for 100 years now, and thousands of athletes compete in each Olympics. I launched my World Competes blog and web site last month; I figured that there never would be a lack of things to write about. Although I have watched the Olympics for about as long as I can remember, by writing about the Olympics every day, I learn a lot. This is a benefit about choosing a niche and writing about it.

Although I still write about topics that interest me outside of these niche topics, I know more than the average person about my niches. This helps me write about these topics better.