Nine Niches Are Too Many For Substack?
Niche down, they say! What does that even MEAN?
Niche down, they say! What does that even mean? What is a niche?
It’s a subject. Like fitness, finance, cooking, travel, or the like. Niches come in different shapes, sizes, and colours, just like baby toys.
They want you to stick to one topic, and avoid all others. This is to avoid confusing your audience, so that your audience always has an idea what you’re going to write about.
On the surface it’s sound advice. If you want to write on only one subject. I don’t. I can’t.
My niche is me. My voice. The way I write. The ideas that cross my mind. My stories. My political leanings.
I might write about my chickens, a road trip, the latest Trump travesty, a random news story I read, a Substack or Medium article that made me think, or maybe even some kind of fiction.
How do you know where to find which types of post? I’m glad you asked! On Substack, they’re separated off into SECTIONS:
Articles
These are the miscellaneous every-day kind of posts. Not overtly political. Not fiction. A day in the life of me. Or a day in the life of chickens.
Hindsight Universe
I’ve written a novel, and I’m posting it RIGHT HERE. There are three or four story instalments per month and one “behind the scenes” post, because some things need to be said!
Hindsight is a post-pandemic dystopian novel, set in three timeframes: 2020, 2024, and 2038. Don’t worry, each is clearly labeled.
Interstellar Universe
You like science fiction? Who doesn’t like science fiction? Well, okay, maybe YOU don’t. But if you do, you’ll find various short stories, in-universe ramblings, and occasionally longer pieces set in one of the fifty-or-so star systems humans have reached in the next few hundred years. Of course, some are set in System 00 — which is our Solar System.
Worldbuilding
As you might have guessed, I build star systems for fun. And for stories. I have lots to say on the subject. And sometimes I have questions for you. Maybe you’ll learn something interesting about my creative process? Maybe you want advice on how to build a star system? Look no further. Actually, DO look further, because I’m only one guy, with one outlook or viewpoint, and besides, there’s not much in the worldbuilding section yet.
My So-Called Democracy
You want politics? You got politics! All the real political stories are here. The Trump bashing. The Canada cheerleading. Other things too, because of COURSE there are other things!
Short Stories
I love short stories. They’re easier for me to get my head around than novels. From a writing perspective. And from a reading perspective. Some of my stories fit into Hindsight Universe, or Interstellar Universe, or into the 366 Story Seeds project (below), but all the OTHERS will live here. Eventually.
366 Story Seeds
Did you ever run out of story ideas? Look no further. I USED TO have trouble finding a story idea, and then, by getting into the habit of looking for ideas all the time, and of interrogating that idea to find where its story was hidden (366 times), I got better at it. The Seeds themselves are scattered here and there on the interwebs, on Medium specifically, on Notes here on Substack, and at various ebook retailers (for the impatient). The STORIES? They’re here. Not all of them. Not yet. Actually, not many of them. But soon, my pretty, SOON ….
Neil’s Basics of Mapling
You remember I talked about NICHE? This one is pretty NICHE. Making maple syrup is a spring thing. Late winter, early spring. You’re unlikely to get more than one new story per year in this section.
Archive
This is where all articles go to — SLEEP. Yes, SLEEP. An eternal rest, after a whole year out in the open. You can still access them — for a price!
The thing about Substack SECTIONS is that you can be subscribed to any of them, all of them, or just the one that tickles your fancy.
And that brings me to a SUBSTACK SECRET.
When you initially subscribe you might be subscribed to every section, even the ones you’re not interested in. When you go to the UNSUBSCRIBE page, you can unsubscribe JUST from the section(s) that you aren’t interested in. You don’t need to unsubscribe from them all.
Why am I telling you this? Well, it seems that every single time I post something (anything) I lose a subscriber. That novel I’m serializing? Every episode loses me a subscriber.
And every non-political post? It loses me someone whose profile looks pretty political.
But when I post something political, I ALSO lose someone. As if people have also had enough of politics.
Now, the cynics among us might suggest that I’m just not a very good writer. I have plenty of Writer’s Doubt, after all. More than enough. Don’t think I haven’t thought of this. But I also have a few people who tell me (every so often) that they like my writing and think I’m an okay/good writer. And regardless of what anyone else thinks, I like my own writing, and one common piece of writing advice is to write for yourself, right?
So I do that.
Could it be that I’m simply posting too much? Honestly, most weeks I am NOT posting much at all, so I really don’t think so.
It could be because people just get too many emails overall. I confess that I occasionally target someone for deletion, for unsubscription, because I have not connected with their posts in a long time and some days my inbox is just a disaster. So I understand that someone might select me on that basis too. I guess I have to be okay with that.
And so I come back to the idea of niches.
I think it’s because I don’t have a niche. Or because I have [counts fingers] NINE sections into which a post might fall. So that counts as NINE niches.
Is that too many?
Perhaps that’s what my sporadic unsubscribes are telling me?
Where do I post most often?
“My So-Called Democracy” and “Hindsight Universe” are the two sections that get the most regular posts, with “Articles” in third place. So, really, that’s only three active niches: politics, serial fiction, and day-in-the-life posts. Is THAT too many?
If so, it’s a problem. For me, I mean. Because I can only write what I want to write, what I am driven to write. Today it will be about niches, but soon I’ll write more about the democratic disaster in the USA, or some new space discovery, and of course I’ll have the next episode of Hindsight to post soon. Who knows what I’ll write about after that?
And isn’t that part of my CHARM?
With a Substack named “Life, the Universe, and All The Things”, would you expect a no-niche Neil, a single-niche Neil, or a multi-niche Neil?
Because I think the title’s telling you exactly what you’re going to get: a day-in-the-life (of Neil), the (Hindsight) Universe, and ALL THE THINGS (that are going on in the world right now).
And no one knows what that might include tomorrow.
(Not even me.)
Thanks for reading!
Another thought, if you narrow your niches, wouldn’t that mean you would have to narrow your focus, which would mean narrowing your thinking, which would possibly mean becoming more (gasp!) narrow minded 😱?
Not being very familiar with Substack, or honestly social media in general, I had no idea that one would be discouraged from writing on multiple subjects. Seems to me, that would be extremely dull!! I have a very inquisitive mind, I like a lot of variety, and I find that reading about different subjects make a person think and often challenge one in unexpected ways!
I quite surprised that you lose subscribers in this way! Personally, I have unsubscribed from ones that seem to duplicate each other, and ones I don’t always find interesting because of the volume; nothing personal. I have a limited amount of time that I allow myself to engage here, so I need to be selective. You make the cut!!!