I Was Dead Wrong
I now know both works
In the today’s story, I will give you an “Aha” Moment.
But this isn’t me giving you life advice or a hard-earned lesson I learned on how to live a better life. None of that bullshit. I’m going to give you an overall glance at how to build a “Writing business” in two different ways.
By the time you finish reading it, you may find yourself saying: “Wow, I didn’t know that, Har. Appreciate you sharing this. Thanks a lot.” Just saying!
When I first started writing online, I thought the only way to build a successful writing business was to write about “One niche.” I wish I had done enough research about it. Because now I realize how wrong I was.
If you’re wondering whether you should write about one niche or multiple to build a writing business, you’ll find your answer in this story. I’ll also discuss the nuances of building your business in both ways.
I’ll select writers and creators from the internet to prove that what I’m talking about makes sense and is legit. Does that make sense though?
So let me start by saying this line: You can build a successful writing business by writing about one niche, and also writing about multiple niches. Yup. Both works.
First, let me show you how you do both of them and who are the people doing it successfully so you can learn from them. Alright.
Let’s dive in!
Niche Writing
Niche writing is a writing model in which you’re not allowed to talk about random topics. This means you’re constrained to a specific niche. And you only cover those one or two selected topics.
Can you build a writing business doing it?
Of course, you can. I think it’s easier than the latter one (I’m about to show you) Because you gather a niche audience who finds your topic relevant — thus easy to monetize them.
Let me show you some of the writers and creators who’ve done or doing it:
1. Lenny’s Newsletter
Lenny writes about a niche topic — Product management.
By only writing about this niche topic, he’s successfully built an audience of 687,000 subscribers (holy moly!) on Substack. He has thousands of paid subscribers resulting in millions of dollars in annual recurring revenue.
And what’s interesting is, he loves what he writes about.
Let’s move to the next one!
2. Nicolas Cole
Cole has also built a few successful businesses in his niche.
He mostly talks about digital writing, Writing with AI, and Ghostwriting. What’s interesting is though that as he talks about these niches, he has built a successful business around them.
For example, Ship 30 For 30 is a cohort-based writing course. Write With AI is a paid newsletter that has thousands of paid subscribers resulting in a $300k ARR business. And, Premium Ghostwriting Academy, which is also successful — teaches people how to become a profitable ghostwriter.
Well, not to mention, he doesn’t run all of these businesses alone, his co-founder is Dickie Bush, and they have a team of more than 15 people.
3. James Clear
What James is known for?
When you remember James Clear, the one clear word comes to your mind: Habit. Right? The guy is known for building habits. And can safely say he is known for how to build better habits.
He has a niche audience.
It might shock you to know that his newsletter has more than three million subscribers — interested in building better habits in life. His book The Atomic Habits has sold more than 15 million copies to date. 15 million!!
How does he make money?
He has multiple revenue streams. He makes money from his book royalty, sponsorship, and seminars, and now he also owns an application, which I don’t know whether it’s generating money or not since it’s new.
But he has a successful writing business — and makes a lot of money.
2. Nicheless Writing
You see, how writing about one niche can help you build a successful business. But the question is: Can writing about anything help you build a successful business? That’s a big question right there, you know.
Are there people who write whatever they find interesting and also generate money to pay their bills? The answer is: yes, there are many!
There are so many writers, authors, and creators who write what they find fascinating and make money doing it. Isn’t it mind-boggling?
Most people can’t make money in the nicheless writing method. But if you’re just smart enough and have built a deep meaningful relationship with your audience — they can’t help but support you by paying you money.
Let’s see some examples of the people who are doing it:
1. Tim Urban
Have you ever heard of “Wait But Why?”
Tim Urban is the guy behind that blog. Tim is an absolute genius at writing about the topics he finds interesting. Said differently, he has the ability to find uncommon things about a common thing.
Just look at his website. No one writes the way he writes!
He makes you laugh. He makes you smile. He makes you think differently. He forces you to question almost everything. He has a good humor. He is the kind of writer people want to read the essays from.
Now you might think: Wow, that’s really great. He writes whatever he wants to write. But then you question, so how does he make money? Awesome!
I know it’s hard to monetize a nicheless audience since there is no direct tangible outcome because you write what you care about or are interested in — makes it hard for people to pay you money for the things you create.
But certainly, it’s not impossible!
Tim makes money through his Patreon membership, which has 5,000+ members supporting him by paying anything from $1 to $100 per month. This makes Tim $5,000 to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue. He also has a book that has sold tens of thousands of copies. So definitely he makes a good amount of money from his book (What’s Our Problem?) too.
Third, he makes money on Gumroad. Yup, you heard that right. As you might know, his essays vary from 5,000 to 40,0000 words each. Yeah, they’re too long. So to monetize it (unintentionally I guess) he also converts those blog posts into PDFs and sells them on Gumroad for $3 to $10 each.
I’m not sure what are the other income streams he has. But definitely, he is making a living writing what is loves. What can be more amazing than this?
2. The Cultural Tutor
Meet Sheehan.
Not more than a year or two, he was working at MacDonalds. But fast forward to today, he has 1.7M+ Twitter followers, which makes him a couple of thousands of dollars per month — but allowed him to never work again at any job.
What a mesmerizing story!
What’s fascinating is that, without showing his face or name, he has been able to build a massive following. (big deal right?) Most of his followers (90%) don’t even know his name, how he looks, or where he is from.
He is a pseudo-anonymous account on Twitter:
What does he write about?
He writes about a variety of things — art, culture, history, paintings, architecture, and mostly what he finds fascinating like the topic “Why do we wear ties? This means he doesn’t constrain his curiosity.
In this interview with David Perrell, he said that he doesn’t read any book that has been published in the last 50 years. This means he doesn’t read all these best-selling new books that have been published in the last three or four decades.
That’s wild to know!
Most of his content doesn't grab my attention though, but I do check whether the thread has gotten 1,000 likes or 60,000 likes, and mostly, it’s the latter one. Said differently, he knows how to write viral Twitter threads.
So how does he make money?
As far as I know, he has a couple of income sources. First, he is a Petreon by David Perell who has been supporting his work since 2022. David pays him monthly or annually so that Sheehan can keep writing those viral threads. And so far it’s working, I guess.
The guy makes anything between $2,000 to $4,000 from David directly. The second thing that he makes money from is his paid subscription on Twitter. I have read somewhere on the internet that he makes $3,000 or $5,000 per month from his paid subscription.
I wonder if he has also got some book deals. Overall, the guy is doing great!
3. Sahil bloom
This guy is the prime example of Nichless's writing.
Recently he wrote a thread about “Bees” on Twitter. Yup, Bees lol.
Sahil does not just write about the things he finds fascinating, but also if there is one person who has built multiple successful businesses writing about anything he wants — Sahil is the guy I know.
He has an audience of 1M+ followers on Twitter:
What does he write about?
Literally anything under the sun! If you check his Twitter account, you’ll find that he has written about different topics over the course of weeks, months, or years. This was one of the main reasons he grew pretty fast.
His recent thread about bees has gotten 18M+ views and 43k likes!:
Here is what he has to say about writing:
Crazy isn’t it?
When people asked how does he make money, his response:
This guy is insane!
What’s crazy is that he not only writes about things he is interested in but also makes more money than any writer who has niched down just to make money. No doubt, niche-ing down can definitely make you a ton of money, but if you don’t enjoy the topic you write about, you’ll be miserable.
So do you see? Both of these methods work.
Now that you know both methods work, it’s just the decision of whether you want to go with niche writing or nicheless writing.
Wait! Do you want me to help you a little more? If you have a deep interest in one particular topic and have deep expertise in that niche, and you’re confident that you’ll never get bored talking about that one niche — Go with the niche writing.
If you don’t have a deep interest in one topic, and you have no expertise in any particular domain, I think nicheless writing would be a better path to choose. But you have to differentiate yourself from other writers. That’s it.
And that’s a wrap!
Did you know about this? Let me know in the comment section. Also, share this story with someone who’s struggling with a niche or struggling to build a writing business.
Thanks a lot for reading the story till the end.
