Are You Too Niche for Your Own Good?

Are you sabotaging your work by making it too “you”?

Photo: Craig Whitehead/Unsplash

I do a lot of Weird Crap™.

In my writer life, in my real-world life, in my life on Sims where I’m richer than Jeff Bezos, but I still haven’t gotten round to adding a roof to my house — there’s just so much weird crap going on. It’s who I am, it’s how I exist; I am a catalyst for chaos but not necessarily even in a cool way.

YouTube would never pay me for this. TikTok would shun me. I don’t think even MTV would commission me for a reality show. I’m just a little odd.

And honestly? I love that because it means I get to infuse this peculiarity into everything I make. I stick tiny planet pin badges onto all the bags I own. I leave love notes in the cutlery drawer of every house I move out of. I wear dresses to give blood, and galaxy print flared trousers to do a big shop. I write about biscuits and vampire boys and the expansive multiverse. It’s what I love to do. It’s my niche.

But is my niche too niche? Is it so refined, so carefully cultivated that it’s actually repelling an entire chunk of readers and dramatically narrowing my audience?

Am I being too me?

We spend so long searching for our “thing”