Chapter 1: The Importance of Finding Your Own Category

As a passionate writer, I'm always on the lookout for tips to enhance my craft, a sentiment I'm sure many of you can relate to. While various articles on Medium offer insights, the challenge often lies in discerning the credibility of the advice and the author behind it.

To gain reliable insights, I turned to "The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention" by Nicolas Cole (non-affiliate link). Cole is not just a prominent voice on Medium; he’s also a successful entrepreneur, making him a credible source for guidance.

So, what wisdom does Cole impart?

His crucial piece of advice revolves around the genres we choose to write in. New writers often find themselves mimicking authors they admire, like Stephen King in horror or John Grisham in legal thrillers. While learning from these masters is valuable, it’s essential to recognize that competing directly against them may lead to being perceived as a mere imitation rather than an original voice.

To put it bluntly, surpassing iconic figures like King and Grisham is nearly impossible—they dominate their respective fields, consistently appearing on the New York Times Best Seller list.

This leads to Cole's key suggestion: create and claim your own category. He highlights that many writers overlook this concept, yet it is vital for achieving long-term success. Furthermore, specificity is crucial in defining your category.

For example, instead of just writing about romance broadly, you could narrow your focus to a unique niche, such as romance involving war veterans or stories centered around soldiers. By honing in on a specific angle, your chances of standing out and succeeding increase significantly.

A similar approach can be applied in the self-improvement genre on Medium. Instead of competing with established authors like Tim Denning or Dr. Mehmet Yildiz, consider focusing on self-improvement tailored for first-time mothers or baby boomers. While still within the self-improvement realm, this targeted focus could elevate your profile and expertise within that niche.

It's important to remember that while carving out a niche, your topics should still resonate with readers' interests.

What can we take away from Cole's insights?

This straightforward advice might seem obvious, yet it wasn’t apparent to me until now. On Medium, discussions about niches typically revolve around broader categories like technology or self-improvement. Though this is a common starting point, Cole encourages us to refine our focus within those broader subjects.

From my experience, I’ve witnessed this principle in action, albeit unknowingly. I primarily write in the technology category and have explored various topics. However, when I concentrated on Apple or Microsoft technologies, my engagement metrics improved significantly.

Unbeknownst to me, I had narrowed my focus to technology for Apple enthusiasts and later to those specifically interested in Microsoft Windows. This strategic narrowing made a notable difference in my statistics.

In conclusion, while I don’t always adhere to Cole’s advice—my interests span a wide range—his suggestions are worth considering for every piece I write. If consistently applying his advice proves effective, it will undoubtedly be the best $9.99 investment I've made in a while.

Until next time...

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