Most freelancers face a choice at some point: should I write about A or B? Often, one option might seem more interesting ... but another might seem more lucrative.
How can you tell if a particular option is going to make money? And how can you decide whether to follow the money or not?
These aren't straightforward questions, and there will always be examples of freelancers who make money from surprisingly odd topics.
Will This Make (Enough) Money?
Some topics are inherently more lucrative options than others: normally because there's a large market for products/services related to them. Publications paying for said articles will often be making a fairly large part of their profits from advertising revenue.
So, profitable niches for freelancers include things like:
- Diet and exercise
- Credit cards and finances
- Digital marketing
Obviously, there is one pretty huge caveat here: you need to be able to write about your topic with some degree of authority. I don't mean that you should be an "expert" in it, but you should feel confident that you know what you're talking about. In some niches, it's an advantage to have a related qualification (e.g. you might be a nutritionist writing about diet and healthy eating
or an accountant writing about money management).
There are a lot of signs you might look at to see whether or not something is a profitable niche. One very simple one is to look for the presence of very large blogs on that topic (think 50,000 or more readers). Blogs this large aren't likely to exist without money being involved. Large blogs will also often hire freelancers to write for them.
You could also look, though, for other publications – e.g. journals or magazines – devoted to the topic. Do check rates of pay for these: you may well find publications related to a niche subject (e.g. eggcup collecting) ... but they will often pay little or nothing for contributions.
Depending on the topic, another good place to look is at companies that might require content on that subject.
Should I Follow the Money?
My rule of thumb as a freelancer has always been that I will not write about something illegal or unethical. I'm not going to write about anything that would make it hard for me to sleep at night. Obviously exactly what you consider "unethical" is personal. You might want to think about your boundaries around areas like:
- Political content (e.g. extreme right-wing / left-wing)
- Drugs and cigarettes
- Pornography
- Financial products / services like payday loans
Beyond these sorts of areas, though, you may need to weigh up the pros and cons of writing on a particular subject:
- Does this interest me enough that I want to write about it for days / weeks / months?
- If it doesn't interest me, is the money at least good?
- Is there a more interested related area or angle I could write in?
- Will I need to do a lot of research to get up to speed in this field ... and will this research be paid for or not?
Even in the early days of your freelancing career, I'd definitely recommend taking on at least some work because it interests you. If all your assignments are ones that you are only doing for the money, you'll quickly burn out.
You may also find that, while a topic might not be a hugely lucrative field as a whole, you can carve out your own space within it – especially if you know a lot about it, have a qualification or particular experience related to it, or simply like to keep up with recent developments in the field.
Ultimately if you're trying to decide between two niches, I'd suggest trying out both for a trial period (e.g. aim to get 3 assignments or aim to write for 2 months on each) to see (a) which you prefer writing about and (b) how the money compares.
