Writing is a career for lifelong students. As you research and investigate facts for new articles, nonfiction, and even fiction projects, you’re constantly learning new things.
With that in mind, I’ve decided that my next Big Offering for readers won’t be another book. It’ll be a course with multiple lessons and workbooks for students to complete at their own pace.
Called Launch Your Niche Writing Career, this course will be for people who are looking to make money writing about their chosen niche topic. It’s information that’s general enough to work for people interested in pursuing any niche, from tech journalism to fashion blogging, but the majority of examples and case studies come from my own geeky writing experience.
In order to figure out Otaku Journalist readers’ specific strugglers with taking their writing to the next level, I gave away ten free 30-minute consultation sessions on the newsletter. (See, this is what happens when you join the newsletter!) I’ve conducted five so far, and each person has left with a recording of our talk and a personal PDF outline of goals and solutions.
Truth be told, I’ve never done consulting or coaching before, and I was nervous I wouldn’t have anything helpful to say once it came down to one-on-one. Thankfully, I was wrong! Here are some of the testimonials consultants had about my advice:
“I love how Lauren pointed out my actual challenges in writing and gave useful, practical suggestions in no time.”
“I realized my two biggest issues to getting steadier and higher paying work as a niche writer—and talking about them with her, also realized the steps I can take to help resolve them!”
“What was really useful though, was just having the conversation with her. It has given me a bigger push to keep looking for work than any of the books or blogs I’ve read.”
I want to give you your own version of the solution-finding PDF. You can download it for free by clicking the link, but you’ll want to read the rest of the article after that.
I don’t know your personal struggles with launching a niche writing career, but after talking to some of my readers, I can make a guess. Here are some pieces of advice I gave to readers during one-on-one consultants that just might help you out.
To go from free to paid, grab a testimonial
If you’re already writing for free to build up your portfolio (if you’re not, you can find some leads here) I’m certain the blog owner you’re volunteering for would be happy to write up a great testimonial about your writing skill and work ethic. You can use this on your portfolio site or in pitch letters while reaching out to new, paying writing opportunities.
Let editors decide if your work is good
If you’re nervous about the quality of your writing, don’t give your self esteem a chance to sabotage your work. It’s not your job to decide if work is good, it’s the editor’s, and the editor won’t lie to you to protect your feelings—that would mean they’d have to put crappy writing on their site. Keep writing wherever you are accepted, but don’t do your editor’s job for her.
Repurpose your free work as a paid offering
When you cover a specific niche that readers are hungry for because it’s not often covered, you don’t need to find other people to pay you on bigger sites. You can write about it on your own blog and make a side income that way. Take your most valuable and popular posts, expand them and freshen them up, and turn them into digital products.
Find work and readers on the blogs you read
What are the big blogs in your niche? Guest post for them—they often pay! Plus, if you’re a regular reader, chances are you’ll know what kind of things they want to publish, and what coverage they may be missing. You can also get ideas from them about what’s popular in your niche, and turn that into helpful posts for your own blog’s readers.
Connect with other writers
Some of the best opportunities I’ve gotten are things I’ve heard about through other writers. Take advantage of the communities you are already a part of in order to find new work. Consider building a mastermind group where you and other writers with similar goals encourage and support one another.
These are all pieces of advice you could put in the “Solutions” section on your free PDF. Download it now to get started.
Watch this space to learn more about Launch Your Niche Writing Career as it comes up.