Why “Picking a Niche” is Not Good Advice

Finding a voice –finding a creative methodology, along with the tone, rhythm, and sounds that intrinsically accompany it — is the most challenging hurdle for any writer to overcome.

It is similar to when individuals unaccustomed to reading attempt to make it a habit.

To find the way in both cases, one should follow their interests in the initial stages. One can only read and write if the contents of what they are reading and writing are about things that are interesting to them.

William James gives an example of this in his 1890 book, The Principles of Psychology, wherein he mentions an example of getting a child to read: the child in the example has no interest in reading but does have an interest in the pictures/symbols they find in and on the book; when the child asks ‘what do the images mean?’ one should rebut ‘you’ll know if you read the book.’

In the world of freelance writing, one of the most common pieces of advice is to pick a niche –and if you have more than one, stick only to three or four (certainly under ten) as a maximum.

How sound is this advice?

The Role of Personal and Practical Interest in Choosing Niches

For those with few interests or interests that are narrow in scope, it is fantastic advice –anything which is in line with custom is bound to generate popularity and, by that token, money.

In contrast, for those with many interests (something such writers cannot eradicate through sheer will or think away), writing about those interests is often the primary reason they become writers –it becomes more than an opportunity to make a living, but also a chance to learn entirely new subjects by way of writing about them (assuming they know how to conduct research, that is).

Having a niche neatly categorizes writers. However, what cannot be neatly categorized is customarily regarded as “general” with the connotation of that, somehow, being a bad thing.

This is due to the fact that it is assumed (not reasoned or ascertained, as anything done in the name of custom is merely a mode of prejudice) that someone who writes about a lot writes about nothing (as what’s presumed is that no one can be an expert about everything (which is obvious), so insofar as they’re writing under that presumption, they can’t be any good.)

But so-called generalists seldom, if ever, say that they are experts at everything. Indeed, they might often not even call themselves experts in the topics that they do certainly cover.

Generalists typically have a unique framework of reasoning, thinking, and describing which can be applied broadly –often to the effect of producing insights and prose inexplicable to any expert hitherto their creation.

On the Prejudices Against “Generalists” and the Reasons Against Such Prejudices

The actual reason most give –that is, not the presumption — for picking niches instead of becoming generalists is that (due to its ability to make writers readily categorizable) it is more likely to generate revenue, which is almost certainly true — but money is very often not the reason writers get into writing (nor should it be their reason.)

Hence, a better –more authentic, and thus more fruitful in terms of editorial or literary excellence — reason to settle on niches is on the basis of personal intellectual and creative interests alone.

That is, of course, assuming you’re not in the writing business simply for money’s sake.

We see that, historically, the best writers (which we could loosely measure in many ways, but being historically revered is a safe bet here in defining ‘best writers’) have been a mix of generalists and specialists, and in all cases of either, the reason was identical with our more authentic reason for choosing the latter –when one is guided by themselves, and not what others, society, and the like ascribe with value, excellence is the necessary result.

Friedrich Nietzsche condemned the idea of becoming a generalist because he viewed such an idea as utterly antithetical to the philosophical spirit of becoming, which was wide-ranging and interested in a great deal of topics.

Nietzsche himself indeed did talk about almost every topic you can think of in the books he wrote and did so with great wisdom and insight in virtually every case without being an ‘expert’ in any of them.

This is what the wisdom of something like philosophy as a method of thinking and writing affords.

In contrast, Henry Gray was an expert exclusively in anatomy and physiology, producing the work Gray’s Anatomy, which is arguably still the most comprehensive book on that subject matter.

Nietzsche and Gray couldn’t have dreamed of writing any of their counterpart’s works because they differed in their approach to knowledge and writing — though each would’ve surely admired the other’s efforts and fruits as being deep and useful to anyone with access to them — and that is because of their differences in personage and identity, neither of which having much of a care for money.

Of course, it is easier said than done to follow one’s interests instead of the money –when bills need to be paid, and all one has to rely upon to do so is their ability to write, it is far more enticing and even necessary (unless one is okay with accustoming oneself to periodic destitution) to simply narrow ones writing topics than risk not being able to for the sake of creative freedom.

Nevertheless, this changes nothing about the abovementioned statements on the quality of ones writing and one’s motivations to write in the first place –nor does it necessarily make it so creative freedom and financial stability cannot cohabitate; it’s just that it requires a great deal of preliminary general instability to potentially (and with great unlikelihood) actualize.

At bottom, this is all a roundabout way of expressing the now-cliched trend of articles that express the trite idiom to ‘choose quality over quantity’ –and it isn’t roundabout in the sense that one can only make such a choice insofar as they follow what their genuine interests are, which may not lead to having few niches but which may instead lead to becoming a so-called “generalist.”

If that is what indeed occurs, one shouldn’t force themselves to be otherwise for the sake of money or because that is the opinion of online “experts.”

The only expert on how one should go about writing, thinking, and being creative is oneself and deeply trusted others (where such deep trust entails a knowledge of the “expert,” which “oneself” indeed is.)