Happy Tuesday everyone!
Another Tip Tuesday for you all!
Today I want to talk about how to find your niche. Finding your niche feels almost as Pidgeon-holing (is that a word??) as an ideal reader. Kind of another way to fit yourself into a little, confining box that feels claustrophobic.
But I'm here to tell you it is anything but confining and boxy. Finding my niche has actually been super freeing and amazing for me. I started my journey of narrowing my niche down at the beginning of 2019 when I took Katie Phillip's Five Day Author Challenge. For a whole day we focused on finding that one genre we could write our whole lives and never grow tired of it. "That's not possible! I would get bored of writing in the same genre my whole life!" you shout. I thought that too at first.
This is the girl who's debut is a YA sci-fi superhero book, who's written steampunk, high fantasy and even tried my hand at gold old alien sci-fi (none of them published, besides the YA scifi superhero book). I've dipped my hand into so many genres that have caught my interest over the years. I'm pretty sure there's even a retelling somewhere on my flashdrive too. All of them were fun to write... but none of them felt like home.
That's how I like to approach this idea of finding your niche. This is finding a genre that feels so much like home that you never want to leave it. Sound impossible? Well it's not, I promise. It's a journey. Possibly a bit more of a journey of discovery then just finding your ideal reader... but it is so worth it. It's taken me from the start of 2019 to now to find the genre that I could live in forever and never get tired of.
First of all, why is it important to find your niche? From a business stand point, it helps you market and brand yourself. Knowing your niche allows you to narrow in on your audience and makes it easier to sell your books. This is especially important for those wanting to self-publish. You want to be known for something. For your awesome sci-fi adventures or your swoonworthy romances or your daring high fantasies.
On a more personal level, it feels like a small self discovery journey. I don't know about you, but I get excited when I learn something new about my writing and myself as a writer. Discovering a new facet of who I am as a writer. Like I said, it's freeing and amazing to find that one genre you love so much. I feel like I've felt homeless as a writer for a long time, bouncing around from one genre to the next. I love all of my stories in all their different genres but... they never had a deep, meaningful passion behind them. It felt like I was just dipping into different worlds and visiting the lives of different characters, but never had any true passion or feeling behind them. Until I wrote Wayward and then the Archive Series. Wayward and the Archive Series made me realize the genre I love the most more than any other. The genre I could write in forever. Writing my Nanowrimo WIP, Valiant, has just proved it to me. Paranormal romance/YA contemporary fantasy is my jam. My favorite thing in the whole world. If I could stories in that genre for the rest of my life without being able to write any other... I would be content.
So, how do you find your niche?
It starts with a lot of discovery and a lot of dipping your toes into different genres. I would encourage you to try your hand at every genre imaginable. High fantasy, contemporary fantasy, retellings, science fiction, straight up contemporary. Try them all. I believe that once you find that right genre, you'll feel it. There'll be a passion and excitement behind that project like none of the others. This stage of the process takes some time. It's not a one and done. Not a day of research and thinking and getting to know yourself. It takes time to dip into lots of different genres, but don't let that stop you. It sounds daunting, but exploration is so important to finding what does and doesn't work for you.
If you've already dipped into your fair share of genres, I would ask yourself this one question: if I had to choose one genre I could write in for the rest of my life and be happy with, which would it be? Really take time to think and ponder that question. Make a list of genres if you have to. Really search your heart and think about which genres you're drawn to the most.
Which also could be a very helpful tool in figuring it out. Make a list of all of your favorite books. Is there a trend in genre? Or even a trend in theme, tropes or types of characters? What sort of books are you most drawn to? A niche can also be a reoccurring theme or character or plot points that you're naturally drawn to and that almost always occur in all of your books. Really dig deep into that.
If you're the type to cross-genre and you love writing in lots of different genres, then I highly suggest going for the theme niche. You can write books of different genres and still have a niche and a narrowed audience. Take time to pick out some of your favorite themes of some of your favorite books and maybe even in your own books. More than likely you'll find one that is reoccurring.
Those are just a few ways to narrow down your niche. I hope you found these helpful!
What are some of your favorite genres you like to read?
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