I'm a big believer in this.

While I'm new to Medium, I'm not new to online writing. I've been a content writer online since 1996 - yes, 28 years now. And one thing I have learned over the years is every platform will have a different type of primary audience, different age groups and demographics, which impact what niches succeed or fail.

A niche that works well on Tumblr will fail miserably on LinkedIn and vice versa.

I'm always looking for new platforms to join, some I stick with for years, others I leave rather quickly, because some I mesh with well, and others I just don't vibe with at all. And I hate the thought of putting all my eggs in one basket. Been there, done that.

I joined Squidoo in 2005, went all in, in 2007, by 2010 had 2million followers and was their highest paid writer, then in 2013 Squidoo went out of business, and suddenly 90% of my monthly income was gone without warning.

So, now I spread wide across several platforms, lots of smaller income streams, instead of one big income stream, because if one small stream goes out, I'm not suddenly with no income at all.

And, while I have my little set of go-to niches that I rotate through, I try to focus on a slightly different though similar niche for each platform, that way readers of each one get something different, but they know it'll be on par with "my brand - I hate the term brand, but it's the best word to describe it". They know what to expect of me, even if it's different on each platform.

Like, I'm a Dark Fantasy novelist. So, they know on one platform I'll write Dark Fantasy fiction, vs another platform I'm write essays on how to create characters for Dark Fantasy novels, vs some place else I'll focus on teaching how to self-publish Dark Fantasy on Amazon. Each is a slightly different niche, but each niche is "expected" of me. As my readers know, Dark Fantasy is the big picture niche.

And, so, now I'm trying out Medium. I'm nearing the end of my 4th month here, just crossed 500 followers, and have spent the first 4 months "testing the waters", writing lots of different niches, all within the one larger umbrella niche, to try to figure out, what narrow micro niche do I want to focus on here on Medium. Obviously it'll be related to my Dark Fantasy novelist career, but will it be publishing short fiction? Teaching how to write fiction? Teaching how to publish fiction? Something else?

I'm only 4 months in on my Medium journey, so, I'm still in the niche discovery stage. And I am slowly narrowing it down, so I figure, by my 6th month here, I should be focused enough to go full force on one micro niche and then focus on growing an audience for whatever I decide to narrow down on.