Actions Worksheet: Lecture Two

Finding Your Niche

1. Write down three general topics that you love writing about, i.e. gardening,
travel, social media etc.

2. Now take your general subject areas and drill each one down into a sub-topic
you enjoy writing about. For example, a sub-topic for gardening might be
growing roses, for travel it might be backpacking in Europe and for social
media it might be Twitter for small businesses.

3. Take a look at your sub-lists and see if there is anything there you know you
could get paid to write about on a regular basis. Be creative but also be
realistic – you have to see that there’s a demand for this and enjoy writing
about it. (If you’ve already completed work of this kind before, that’s a pretty
good indicator.)

If you’re still having trouble picking your niche, consider these questions
in addition to the above exercises:

1. What sort of thing are you the ‘go to’ person for among your friends and
family? What does everybody ask you for help or advice with?
2. What do you read about until two in the morning, until your eyelids ache and
your mind is fuzzy yet alert with a strange blend of tiredness and exhilaration?
Whatever that thing is, trust me, you know about that topic.