What to Write About on Substack (Topics and Niches)
Niches: ugh!
Hey there, Karen here!
Today I’m sharing what I have learned about topics and niches on Substack in the 2 + years I have been here. This post is inspired by Sheelagh, who purchased a one-off call with me* to get clarity with her Substack plans. She has a fabulous topic idea, and I can’t wait to see what she does with it!
Niches on Substack
For your Substack publication to be successful, you must have something of value to offer your subscribers. Newsletters are transactional: a subscriber gives you space in their inbox and you give them something in return.
What you give them could be…
educational — they will learn specific skills;
informational — they will feel smarter about a topic;
entertainment — they will feel enjoyment, nostalgia or get a laugh;
time-saving — they will get curated information so they don’t have to search elsewhere;
money-making — they could learn about investment opportunities, work opportunities or businesses-for-sale.
Readers who subscribe to your publication do so with the expectation they will get one of those things. You need to keep delivering it to them or your publication will fail to thrive.
That means you need a ‘niche’. Ugh. A niche is a necessity for Substack. It’s how you get — and keep— subscribers who want to hear from you week after week.
Imagine if you subscribed to a newsletter and received a feminist humor email one week and a deep treatise on the economic arguments for renewable energy the next week. You would be confused. Other potential subscribers would be confused. The newsletter won’t get many subscribers. It would be a waste of the writer’s time.
But I hate niches!
If you hate niches, don’t despair, newsletter ‘niches’ can be broad. Take a dip into the Substack directory and you will find plenty of successful newsletters that cover a wide range of subject matter.
The thing that these ‘broad topic’ newsletters have in common is that they all consistently deliver the same thing to their readers, whether that is entertainment or education or time-saving. That, then, is their ‘niche’.
6 questions to help find your niche
Here are six questions to help you find a niche for your Substack publication:
What problems do you like to solve for others?
How are you different from other writers?
What do people always ask you about?
What else is out there?
Will readers be excited by this topic?
Will this topic be easy to monetize (if that’s your goal)?
Let’s dive into these questions one by one.
1. What problems do you like to solve for people?
do you like to make people laugh?
can you improve their golf handicap?
do you love sharing recipes with people who don’t know what to cook for dinner?
do you get a kick out of helping people with Microsoft Excel?
When you start a newsletter you make a commitment to solve your readers' problems week after week. Find a problem that you are excited about solving. If you don’t feel enthusiastic, it will be hard to keep writing.
2. How are you different from other newsletter writers?
This question helps you discover your unique point of difference from other newsletter creators.
Use it to get ideas about what your Substack publication will ‘feel’ like, as well as what you can offer your readers that they won’t get elsewhere.
For example, I have a food safety newsletter and I’m different from other food safety publications because I have real-world experience as a food scientist. Other publications on the topic are edited by journalists, not scientists.
What is unique to you that will make your newsletter special, or help you refine your niche? If your newsletter is about golf and you are a woman, that would give you a unique topic — golf for women. If your newsletter shares Excel tips and you love to draw, your newsletter could include hand-drawn animations instead of boring stock photographs.
3. What do people always ask you about?
You have unique skills and knowledge; everyone does. Check your messages and chats. Is there a topic that your friends and family ask you for advice?
You might be the person everyone asks when they need to know… What’s the best way to trim a tree; mend a sweater; bake sourdough; plan a holiday…
You have answers that other people want. If you’re excited about answering those questions you have a topic to work with.
4. What else is out there?
Substack is different to other newsletter platforms because it allows you to browse publications by category.
By now you should have a few topic ideas in mind. Check out other publications on your topic and ask yourself:
Who else is writing on this topic?
What are they doing well?
What about them might turn off potential readers?
Are they writing for the people you want to help?
These questions will help you see where you could provide something different, or better, in that niche.
5. Will readers be excited by this topic?
The internet is a huge place. If you’re excited by a topic, chances are there are thousands of other people (probably hundreds of thousands) who are also into it.
If you are hoping to get a large number of subscribers, be sure to choose a topic that a lot of people are interested in. Then make your publication stand out from the competition by including your own personality and unique experiences in your work.
6. How easy is this topic to monetise?
If you want to earn money with your Substack publication - and not everyone does! - you should put some thought into how easy it would be to monetize the topic.
Writers are monetizing all kinds of topics on Substack; from personal essays, to investment advice, to how to code with Python.
There are a bunch of different ways to earn with a Substack publication: you can make your publication free but offer other services to your readers; you can make your publication free but sell ad space; or you can offer paid subscriptions to your readers.
When it comes to paid subscriptions, it’s easier to get readers to pay for information or services that help them earn money compared to newsletters which are purely for entertainment, such as memoirs or personal essays.
With this in mind, review question 1 (What problem will you solve for your readers?) and ask yourself, is the problem one that people are willing to pay to solve? If the answer is yes, you have got yourself a winner!
Final thoughts
A Substack newsletter is a low-risk, low-cost way to get in front of readers who want to hear from you week after week. Some of them might even want to pay you for the privilege.
Having a niche will help you deliver what your readers want and expect. Without one, your newsletter might struggle to grow.
If you have asked yourself the six questions in this post and still haven’t selected a niche, don’t worry, just start writing, and see what emerges from the chaos. Good luck, and let me know how you go.
*My help calls are US$20 for 40 minutes (bargain!). Book your slot here
This was so very helpful and insightful, thank you! I think the issue is that so many new writers believe that the only way to grow is to stick to one topic or niche. I believe there’s beauty in variety and you never know which niche might take off. Great post!
This was a great read for me, Karen. None of it was really "new" but it was a decent kick in the pants for me to decipher wth I'm doing here. I mean, I've always known what road I'm going down with my publication but need to streamline it in a way that makes sense for the reader.
I think your post just helped me clarify that. Thank you!