"Pick a niche."

That's one of the first things anyone tells you when you start writing online. Focus on one thing. Become the go-to person for that thing. Let the algorithm reward you for consistency.

So you pick something. Productivity tips. Newsletter growth. Minimalist living. You write ten posts. Maybe fifteen.

Then what?

The topic isn't bad. But one topic might not be enough to sustain a person who thinks about more than one thing. Which is all of us.

I've been writing online since 2008. And the writers I've watched stick around, the ones still publishing years later, didn't survive by niching down to a single keyword. They did something different.

The advice isn't wrong, but the interpretation might be

Most people hear "niching down" and think it means shrinking. Pick one keyword. One audience. One angle. And never deviate.

But that's not how any successful writer I've followed operates. The ones still publishing two or three years in didn't pick one topic only. They picked three. Sometimes four. Sometimes five.

Not random topics. Not whatever's trending this week. Topics they could write about on their worst day. The kind of stuff that comes up in conversation whether anyone asks or not.

That collection of topics, the overlap between them, THAT is niching down done right.

Your niche is a Venn diagram, not a keyword

Think about the writers you subscribe to. The ones you open every time they land in your inbox.

Are they writing about one single thing? Probably not. They're writing about a few things that somehow feel connected. The connection isn't the topic. The connection is the person.

A food writer who covers weeknight recipes, eating alone, and grocery shopping on a tight budget isn't in three niches. They're in one. It just has three pillars holding it up.

Someone writing about slow travel, language learning, and raising kids abroad… same thing. One perspective. Multiple entry points.

The combination is what makes it original. You don't need a unique topic. You need a unique combination. And you already have one. You just haven't written it down yet.

How to find your content pillars

One question cuts through all the overthinking:

What could I write about on my worst day?

Not what sounds marketable. Not what has the best search volume. What would you still have something to say about when you're tired, uninspired, and wondering why you're doing this at all?

For me, it's a few things. I could write about them for the next ten years and not run out. (And I pretty much have since 2008.)

Your answers may not be what you currently write about. That's fine. Write your three to five things down. Look at them together. That specific mix is your actual niche.

If you're just starting to write online, picking your pillars early saves you months of writing content that doesn't feel like you.

Why multiple pillars work better than one

Three reasons. I think.

First, you never burn out on a single topic. You rotate. Monday you write about one pillar, Thursday another. When one feels stale, you lean into the others. The variety keeps you going.

Second, your content stays a bit unpredictable. Readers don't know exactly what's coming next, but they know it'll be somewhere along the lines of 3 to 5 topics. That's a much better reason to open an email than "oh, another post about the same thing."

Third, you attract people who share more than one of your interests. Those readers stick. They didn't follow a topic. They followed a mind.

This also helps when you're figuring out what topics to write about. Instead of chasing platform trends, you write from your pillars and let the topics come to you.

The downsides of niching down this way

Multiple pillars make your publication harder to describe in one sentence. "I write about X" is clean. "I write about X, Y, and Z" not so much.

It also means your growth might be slower at first. Single-topic newsletters can ride a trend hard and fast. Multi-pillar publications build slower because the audience has to buy into you, not just a subject.

And if your pillars don't connect and there's no thread between them, it might not work as smoothly. Some overlap definitely helps. Not forced. But natural overlap.

The bottom line

Niching down doesn't mean shrinking your world to one topic or keyword. That would be boring.

It means getting specific about who you are as a writer. Your two, three, four things. The combination that nobody else has, because nobody else is you.

Stop picking niches. Start picking pillars. Write about what you'd write or talk about anyway, even if nobody asked. I bet someone wants exactly that.

A writer is nothing without a reader. If you found this helpful, consider becoming my dear email friend. Nothing would make me happier.