How to Write Exactly What Your Readers Want to Read

A magical ven diagram.

Photo by Marga Santoso on Unsplash

I taught a class a couple of weeks ago that ended up with a kind of epiphany for me.

I was trying to explain niches to my students. I started where I always start — with the idea that niches aren’t the topics you write about. They’re the people you write for.

So — my niche isn’t writing your first book. It’s people who want to write their first book.

Let’s do that a couple more times.

• Your niche isn’t raised bed gardening in Zone 6. It’s people who live in Zone 6 and want to garden in a raised bed.
• Your niche isn’t teaching parents how to homeschool math to their third graders. It’s homeschooling parents who want to learn how to teach math to their elementary-school aged kids.
• Your niche isn’t planning European vacations. It’s people who need to plan a European vacation.

It’s a subtle, but very important difference. Because those people are real. And they have other things in common. And when you figure out what those things are, you can figure out how to create them and offer them.

And that’s how we build a writing career.