The Word Wrangler

For a freelance writer, finding and exploiting a niche can be quite a task. When many of us begin our freelance careers we tend to take just about any job that pays in order to develop a portfolio.

That’s all well and good.

But in order to stand out from the crowd you might try to carve out a niche for yourself.  However, many beginning freelancers focus too much on finding something to get excited about rather than using what already excites them.

Have a passion for bugs? How about a particular style of music? Like UFOs? Maybe you’re into dancing.

The point is that we all have things we just can’t wait to do, talk about or share with others. Why not use that passion and turn it into a career? That’s not to say you shouldn’t keep an open mind to other types of work, but writing about that which you love will make you a better, and more productive, freelancer.

And just in case you think your passion isn’t something that people would be interested in, let me just give you the short tale of a man who goes by the name of Gene Ambaum (it’s an alias).

Gene was a librarian. He and a friend decided to start up a comic strip about library. Pretty dumb, huh? I mean, who’d want to read a comic about librarians?

Well it turns out that thousands of people do. Now, Gene and his co-creator Bill, make their living by giving speeches and selling comic themed merchandise.

The point is you’re never alone when it comes to what gets you going. There are plenty of people out there who are just like you, you just have to be a little creative in reaching them, and creating your market.