I don’t want to pick a niche

Finding value in a niche-obsessed world

I wrote an article titled “Newsletters & Niches” in 2021. It was inspired by a Twitter Spaces talk that featured

Linda @ Substack

&

Edwin Dorsey

(author of The Bear Cave). I wrote,

It was a fascinating discussion, but something Edwin said really stood out to me. I’m paraphrasing here, but when sharing advice for new writers, he said to ‘find something no one else is doing and to do that.’

Makes sense, right? Find a niche and do a great job. The slogan equivalent would be “write it and they will come.”

He also mentioned that internet niches are bigger than what you think (and they’re still bigger than what you think if you already know that they’re bigger than what you think). Say that ten times fast.

As a self-proclaimed generalist, Edwin’s advice got me thinking. Is there a market for generalist writers/newsletters? Because from what I’ve seen, all über successful writers have a niche.

The most famous Substacks focus on narrow niches; for example, the highest revenue generating Substack, Letters from an American, written by Boston College historian Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, is all about American history and politics. Her knowledge and expertise on the topic is evident, and she’s grown a massive following that loves her matter-of-fact takes on current events.

It makes sense why subscribers love niches: people won’t spend time reading your work — let alone paying for it — if they’re not getting anything out of it. Here’s where I hit a roadblock, what if you don’t have a super niche speciality? I don’t have decades of experience in some sought after industry. I don’t have a Nobel Prize. The resume is sparse.

So, what’s my value add? I’m still figuring it out, but based on some chats with other writers, people say I’m offering my voice. That seems unsatisfactory for some reason. My experiences, thoughts, and ideas make me (hopefully) wholly unique and that’s why people would subscribe. But that doesn’t float my boat. It feels like I’m cheating my justification and shouting needlessly into the void.

Looking at the current landscape, though, I don’t have a desire to be the prototypical Substack generalist/opinion writer. I don’t think these people have much to offer — at least they don’t to me.

Usually the opinion writers on here follow the same recipe. They have an intellectual sounding framework to view the world, and then they write about controversial topics under that framework which leads to inevitable fireworks in the comments. I think it’s contrived. I’ve interacted with some of these writers and a lot of their persona is simple arrogance. They’re probably lovely people away from the keyboard, but what gets clicks is being an abrasively confident iconoclast that gets eyeballs. No thanks.

I don’t want to be the prodding provocateur. I don’t want to be the comments section pyromaniac. I’d love to write about random things I find interesting, and hopefully there’s a market for that.

There’s still a paradox here that I wrestle with today, just like I did two years ago.

There’s still one lingering question for me: why aren’t there many (if any) famous generalists today?

My answer to this is twofold:

a) To be a famous generalist you need to have a following; however, the best way to gain a following is to become well-known in one domain. If you manage to become well-known in one domain, there’s inertia and you end up not wanting to swim into unknown waters. Thus, the well-known specialists out there can become generalists but there’s too much overhead to transition so they don’t.

b) If you want to be a generalist from the get-go, you need to have consistently profound insights that add value and that’s just hard to do.

Looks like I’ll try to be better at b): live life and write whatever stands out.