Niche Rich: Supply, Demand, and How Much a Freelance Writer Can Charge
The right freelance writing niche lets you earn (much) more
One of the most important parts of building a successful, creative career is ensuring we’re well paid for the work we do. So, why are there so many struggling freelance writers out there? We’re often promised that it’s an easy path to working for ourselves, making money from home, and being our own boss. The reality can be quite different. Many writers struggle to make ends meet and wonder why they can’t earn enough to get on a firm financial footing.
I believe a lot of that comes down to economics, specifically supply and demand. Now, before your eyes glaze over and you click away to something more interesting, I hope you’ll indulge me for a minute. Understanding supply and demand is pretty simple, and applying it to the way you write can substantially increase your rates. That’s got to be worth a few minutes of your time, right?
Great! Let’s get into it.
How supply and demand works
Supply and demand is a simple economic principle — if there’s a greater supply than demand, then prices tend to fall. If there’s a greater demand than supply, prices tend to rise. When we’re looking at writing, the supply is the number of creators writing in a particular niche. The demand is the number of publishers or clients that need content in that niche.
You probably already know what a niche is, but here’s a quick refresher: Niches are the topics that creators write on. Examples of niches include television, travel, accounting software, celebrity gossip, logistics, healthcare, and pretty much any other areas where there’s a need for written content (i.e. all of them).
Why niches have such a big impact on how much you can earn
The more people writing in a certain niche, the higher the supply. The higher the numbers of publishers or clients, the greater the demand. the impact that niches have is how attractive they are to writers, more attractive niches attract more writers. What makes a niche attractive? I believe it comes down to several factors:
Your existing knowledge of the niche.
How interested you are in the niche.
The ease of learning more about the niche.
How fun you find the niche to write about.
So, if you find a niche that’s fun to write about, where you have a lot of knowledge, that you’re interested in, and where you can easily learn more, that makes it a great candidate for writing about. Right? Wrong.
The problem is, everyone else wants to write in these niches too, and there’s a low “barrier to entry.” That means there’s a huge supply of writers and only a limited number of publishers. As we’ve already learned, the higher the supply and the lower the demand, the less you can charge.
Put simply: More popular niches pay less.
Clients and publishers know this. The chances are that if you’re writing in a niche that’s also your passion or your hobby, you’ll find it very hard to make decent money. It’s why we find some truly terrible rates in the more entertainment and consumer-driven niches.
Popular niches can cause other problems, too
Not surprisingly, some niches cause other problems for writers:
Writers in these niches have less bargaining power to raise their rates: If you want to charge more, there are a dozen other writers that the publisher can go to — you either take their rates or don’t work for them. This means you’re limited in how much you can raise your rates and get a decent standard of living
Profit margins are thin: Many of these websites are affiliate sites, selling advertising and are paid in exchange for driving visits / purchases elsewhere. There’s a huge amount of competition between these sites, resulting in thin profit margins, which is one of the reasons they keep rates to writers so low.
Content budgets are small: Due to the low profit margins and large number of writers, clients and publishers have limited budgets / lower desire to pay writers well. Business-to-consumer marketing often suffers from more limited budgets.
There’s a lot of competition from writers willing to work for less: Because of the low barrier to entry and “cheaper” content in many of these niches, writers who are from countries that have lower costs of living can afford to work for less and still maintain a relatively good income. If you’re in a HCOL country, you’re automatically going to be undercut by those writers.
It’s difficult to stand out and build reputation: Because of the large numbers of writers, it can be difficult to establish a reputation and strong portfolio in your particular field. This makes it harder to find better-paying work in future.
AI is a threat: Lower-end content is at a much higher risk of being replaced by AI writers. It’s probably not the best time to get started with these niches in this industry.
What types of popular niches pay less
Alright, so what niches are we talking about where the rates are lower? This is not an exhaustive list, but some of those areas may be:
Entertainment: Celebrities, music, movies, gaming, sports, TV, gossip.
Some consumer products: Food, vitamins, marijuana, alternative health, consumer electronics.
Other areas: Travel, fashion, design, parenting, homemaking, etc.
I’m mainly talking about lower rates for entry- to mid-level writing in these areas. If you’re a specialist with deep knowledge and an engaging approach, you can still earn fairly well in these niches, it will just be a challenge.
How to earn more and make a decent living as a freelance writer
Now that we’ve explored some of the issues with popular niches, let’s pivot and look at how you can earn more. To do that, we’ll need to reverse the supply and demand that I mentioned above, and consider niches where the supply is lower, and the demand is higher.
Reasons for lower supply (and higher rates) among writers
Alright, so lower supply generally means that there’s a higher barrier to entry. What raises that barrier?
Gaining expert knowledge
To write in some of these industries and sectors, you need more specialized knowledge. Fortunately, you can gain that knowledge even without a formal career in those areas. There is plenty of information out there in industry journals, specialized websites, consultant findings (e.g. McKinsey, Deloitte, Gartner, Accenture, and others), and lots of other places.
But, you have to be curious and willing to put in the work to learn stuff. You’ll need to take notes, figure out how things fit together, and read what other experts are saying. My most lucrative areas is supply chain and logistics, and I gained about 90% of my knowledge in the seven years I’ve been a freelancer. That did not come from a former career in the field, but from reading and absorbing.
It can be a challenge to do the work, but it sets you apart and means there are fewer other writers like you.
Curiosity in the field
To learn about something new, you need the drive to encourage you to read, research, and consolidate. This often means curiosity. I can tell you that manufacturing and industrial processing are fields that pay decent rates — but if you’re not at all interested in those areas you won’t have the drive to educate yourself and become more of an expert. So, you need to look at areas where you might just have an inkling of interest. This means starting to read about lots of different areas and focusing on the ones that make you go “Huh?” or “Aha!” And remember that you’ll discard plenty along the way.
Building confidence as a writer
This is a big one. As you start to build curiosity and knowledge, allow your self-confidence to grow as well. Create portfolio samples and take some entry-level work in these niches. This will lead to a virtuous circle and help you to build your expertise and confidence further.
Establishing reputation and connections
It’s easier to stand out when you don’t have as much competition! When clients approach me to write on the supply chain, I used to joke “There are only three freelance supply chain writers in the world, and we’re all very busy!” Of course, that’s a big exaggeration (there are at least four in the first 20 Google results now), but it shows that in a narrow niche, it’s much easier to build a portfolio, establish a reputation, and build connections.
Marketing yourself as an expert
As your expertise grows, you can build that into your marketing. Add the skill to your profile on Upwork, create a landing page on your freelance website, add it to your LinkedIn — tell people about your skills. This is a very effective way to attract clients.
You can do this. Yes, it takes time and effort, but do it well and you’ll be able to command (much) higher rates. Combine it with other formats and skills like white paper writing or content strategy, and there’s big money to be earned.
Other benefits for writers in these niches
In addition to charging higher rates, there are some other advantages to specializing into other niches:
Rates are higher: Expert writers can charge 40c per word and upwards for specialized writing knowledge.
You can often set your rates: Experts often get to define how much they will charge. I haven’t negotiated rates for 4+ years — I state what my rates are, and clients either accept them or move on. Most of the time, they accept them.
Client budgets are bigger: Many of these specialized niches are “Business-to-Business (B2B)” — because other businesses often pay more and these are big-ticket items, the marketing budget for them is higher and profit margins are greater. This is all excellent news for getting paid more.
There’s less competition: It’s easier to stand out, build a reputation, and market yourself to attract clients. There are fewer options for your clients as well, meaning that simply by the law of averages, they’re choosing from a smaller pool of writers.
It’s harder for AI to replace you: Although there is still some threat from AI, you can make yourself more resilient through having more specialist knowledge. Greater expertise also means you can branch out into other areas — strategy, project management, consulting — which will not be so easily replaced.
Type of specialized niches that often pay more
Here’s a (small) selection of niches that can demand higher rates:
Technology: SaaS platforms, AI and Machine Learning, FinTech, Edutech, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Cybersecurity, Automation and Integration, Data Science and Management, Engineering, Cloud IoT, etc.
Finances: Payments and Processing, FinTech, Accounting, Bookkeeping, Taxes, Insurance, Mortgages, Investing, Business Budgets, Loans, etc.
Regulations: Compliance, Certification, Risk Management, CSR, ESG, etc.
Processes: Continual Improvement, LEAN, Project Management, Marketing, Business Intelligence, KPIs, Business Management, Operations, Customer Success and CRM, Branding, Sales Enablement, Digital Transformation, etc.
Other: Legal, Real Estate, Human Resources, Product Design, Executive Decision Making, Mergers and Acquisitions, Communications, Culture, and much more.
Yes, some of these are complex, but the great news is that you can learn about them.
What you can do now
I’m not going to sugarcoat this — pivoting and specializing your niches can be hard. But the rewards can be excellent. Think about what you can do next to expand your knowledge and raise the barrier to entry. Discover your curiosity and see how you can use that to research new, less competitive areas where you can make your mark.
That’s one of the best ways to protect your financial future.
I adapted and expanded this content from a reddit post that I wrote in the freelance writing community that I help to moderate.
Great...I'm always sensitive to examples of people willing to tolerate and appreciate differences, divergent thinking, other points of view...how we are unique, driven by universal laws. I think your articles would be helpful to many...we all have to approach the issues of 'what is my motive' 'what do I want to do' 'what will success look like' and of course the hurdles of competition, relevance, etc.
Thanks for the clear thinking...it can't be too far in the weeds for me. I'm listening as a creative outlier who has lost every list I ever started, always opting for improvisation. That has worked so well for such a long time, but now I admit I may need a recipe to see what's been done and what to do next.