Choose the best freelance writing niches for your skills and interests and you’ll have a more interesting and financially rewarding career as a freelance writer. Here’s how I chose my niches…
Why Focus on Freelance Writing Niches?
Because you’ll get a higher rate of return on the total investment of the time you spend marketing your services and completing your projects.
Most freelance writing specialties fall in the $50-$100 per hour range, with some ranging up to $200 per hour and beyond to $300 per hour and more. The upper figures apply to people who excel in a field where clients pay premium rates for the highest-quality work.
Most writers begin as generalists; however, I’m one of the writers who actually started out as a specialist. Here’s my story.
My First Freelance Writing Niche: Outdoor Writing
I’ve always been an avid hiker who loved to spend as much time outside as possible, so I started my freelance career in the outdoor writing niche.
I leapfrogged straight into writing books by landing a contract with Mountaineers Books in Seattle for my first title, Best Short Hikes in and around the North Sacramento Valley. It was published in 1992 and finally went out of print in 2009.
I leveraged that first book into two more books I wrote in the 1990s for the same publisher: 100 Classic Hikes: Northern California, (now in its fourth edition), and 75 Hikes in California’s Mount Shasta and Lassen Volcanic National Park Regions, (revised edition). In 2018 Day Hiking: Mount Shasta, Lassen & Trinity Alps Regions came out, supplanting the 75 Hikes book. All told my hiking books have sold a combined total of about 80,000 copies.
My status as a book author with one of the top publishers in the field greatly boosted my ability to market myself. I initially focused on the periodical market by writing over 100 articles about hiking, backpacking, and other outdoors activities for magazines such as Sunset and VIA, and also for a half-dozen newspapers. I was still a part-time freelancer at this point; much of my income came from teaching college-level political science courses.
And college teaching quickly led to my main freelance writing niche, the one that’s made me nearly all of my income since the mid-1990s…
My Main Freelance Writing Niche
Even as I started my freelance career in outdoors writing, I was also developing my second and by far more lucrative niche: freelance writing for college textbook publishers.
As a college instructor, I was frequently approached by college textbook sales people. These reps sought to convince me to adopt their books for my classes, and during a conversation with one, I asked who wrote the instructor’s manuals, lecture outlines, and test questions that the publishers provided to the profs who adopt their books. She said, “People like you. Interested?”
I was! She connected me with an editor at her company. I sent in my résumé and some test questions I’d written for one of my own classes. That summer I landed a $4000 project to write multiple-choice, true-false, and essay questions for a new American government textbook. I loved it, it paid well, and I was launched into my main freelance writing niche.
I got more and more assignments from her company and from others I contacted. By 1994 I was ready to leave teaching and launch into freelancing full-time. Writing curriculum for college textbook publishing companies has provided my main income ever since, augmented by book royalties and a few outdoors and travel articles.
What I Make in My Main Freelance Writing Niche
My per-hour pay for creating curriculum components for college textbooks ranges from $50-$100 for most projects, although I’ve had some assignments that paid $150 per hour. Other niches pay more, but I love what I do because I love learning and helping students learn. (Details on how to succeed in this particular niche are in the third edition my ebook Writing College Textbook Supplements.)
Ready to Step Up?
Then get my course Find Your Freelance Writing Niches: Make More Money for Less Work. It’s only 20 bucks, and it contains several exercises that guide you to the niches most likely to boost your earnings.
Your Take
Do you have one or more freelance writing niches? Which ones? Any other thoughts?
BTW, it feels like the niches picked me and I merely said ‘yes’
I’ve heard from other writers about the same thing. They started as generalists, and over time some combination of fate or luck guided them to certain niches.
Thanks for sharing this John. You just seemed to find your niche and hit your stride early on, which is great. You’re right, many freelancers start out as generalists – that’s where I find myself right now.
I am still trying to figure out which niches I want to focus on. I figured it will organically develop. I do know for sure that travel writing is one. Animals is another, although I have not pursued this one yet.
Deevra, just be open to finding the 2-3 niches that are both interesting and remunerative.
If you love animals, consider writing for the many animal-based businesses: pet foods, veterinarians, pet medicines, etc.
After 30+years in healthcare/employee benefits, my niche was pretty much a no-brainer. 🙂
I am just beginning to move on to a niche based on the passion I developed from over a decade of participating in the 3-Day, 60-Mile Walk for the Cure. I’m looking forward to it. 🙂
Cathy, you are a very talented writer, so I’m sure you can succeed in yet another niche. I’ll be following your progress!
John, I’ve had two niches – drug and alcoholism recovery and freelance writing. Along the way I discovered I was a pretty good ghostwriter and have had my hand in many books, including some of my own.
As I’ve become more and more committed to zen Buddhism I’ve been wanting to write in that arena, and sure enough, a couple of opportunities have shown up… I may be working on my next niche.
Anne, I hope writing about Zen works out for you. It’s so important to write about what really interests us.
I’m curious about the idea of writing for college textbooks. I wonder if it is something that a person can do if they’ve never been to college. Or is it more for those who have some kind of formal education with the learning that goes with it?
Christine, writing for college textbook publishers usually does require a college degree, although it doesn’t have to necessarily be in the same subject matter as the textbook work.
That said, there are people without college degrees who are able to do some projects for textbook publishing companies, but it’s overall a tougher sell.
John,
Thanks for reading my mind today! I needed this boost.
My first niche was travel writing, but it’s so flooded and difficult, depending on who is involved with the publication. I’d rather save my cash, enjoy the trip and not worry about documenting it all.
Now I have the motivation to work on my next (hopefully, main) niche that – like Deevra said – will soon develop organically.
–Craig
Craig, travel is a very crowded field. Almost everyone travels, which means a lot of competition. As I told Deevra above, also look at writing copy for the various businesses involved in travel: go beyond the blogs and magazines.
Good info here, John (as well as in your ‘Find Your Niche’ course, which I have used. 🙂 ) I, too, fell into one of my niches pretty easily–two degrees in art history followed by a stint in public relations for several museums and I was ready to rock on the arts. 🙂 I’ve also done a lot of work in the academic/nonprofit sector, which I enjoy, so I find myself in that neck of the woods quite a bit, too.
Thanks for plugging my niche course Lori! You are smart to take advantage of your college background. That’s one of the key areas to mine for good niches.
I’ve done some paying work for nonprofits, but lately I’ve been donating my time to some nonprofits I strongly support.
Always fun to hear how other writers got started on their niches. 🙂 Most of what I write about now comes out of my love of playing with new web tools – and of course my background in journalism has led me to write on aspects of writing, too!
Sharon, it sounds like you really like what you do. And I suggest everyone read your CommentLuv post about why you are such a prolific writer.
Hey John,
It’s always good to be reminded that specialization is important. Right now I’m more of a “generalist” because I don’t feel quite like an expert in anything!
I think breaking into textbook supplements would be a fun field, actually. I’ve been taking college courses since I was fourteen and I’m still not finished. However, my (negative) gut feeling is that they’d rather have writers with experience as professors than writers who have simply taken classes. Maybe that’s just that awful critic in my head though!
I see that your ebook has a sample, so I’m going to go ahead and read that. Maybe make the jump sooner rather than later!
Thanks for your advice,
Alex
Alexandra, it’s fine to start as a generalist as long as you’re also really applying yourself to finding quality niches.
As for writing textbook supplements, it definitely helps if you’ve taught college before. However, there’s a lot of demand in the field, and that means a lot of writers get hired who haven’t taught at all.
This is so interesting, John! I started out covering the things that interested me and it was only later that I realized those tended to be profiles of entrepreneurs and service pieces on personal finance. Once I’d identified those areas of interest, I started branding myself in those niches using the clips I’d already amassed. Initially, my personal finance pieces were pretty fluffy (“10 Holiday Gifts Under $10” and things like that), but over time, I dove into meatier topics like mortgages and insurance by interviewing experts in those industries and doing my homework to get up to speed.
Textbook way to do it Susan. I’ve been following your career over the years. Quite impressive!
John loved the article as you always put out something new for the readers.I agree with the points you mentioned for choosing the niche for someones writing.
Congratulation John Soares, for selling 70,000 copies of your book. It’s good to hear that you charge $50-$100 per hour. I have been also working as a freelancer for past 3 years on various freelancing platform but the rate we can charge is very limited. The clients there have very limited budget for their project and hence the pay is also too low.
Do you have any tips to find high paying clients? 🙂
Competition is very fierce nowadays. On freelancer.com, the rates are very depressing. The indian writers are willing to take up $1.00/article for general articles. How do we compete? I guess like what you said, I need to be in a specific niche and make myself an authority in that niche. Else, can go into technical writing where not a lot of people can write such articles.
Today gave the link of this posts to some newbies to learn before start writing.I hope they will learn reading this article.
Free lance writing can be very tricky, especially if you don’t know what your niches are. Glad to see you found yours John.
I am no where close to a free lance writer. As a tax and estates attorney I have my blog and struggle to write consistently. I found your article very informative and interesting. Learned a lot, too. So thanks.
You mention writing for companies in our interest area, beyond magazines and journals… how does a freelancer find these jobs? I’m just starting to dig into the online freelancing job boards, are they posted there, or is there a direct contact method you’d recommend like sending a letter to their creative department? Thanks!
I have so many interests and hobbies it’s hard to focus on one! 🙂
I tend to go for the niches that jump out at me, more then the ones I need to dig and dig to find. It has worked out a bit better that way, and obviously requires less work.