S01E06: When niches get riches

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda discuss the ever complicated topic of niches. What is a niche, and how does defining it help further your writing career?

By next week, Sam and Matilda will have taken a look at their positioning within the author stratosphere so they can discuss standing out & fitting in.  

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

How to find your niche: https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/04/17/how-to-find-your-niche-and-does-every-writer-need-one/

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the self-publishing mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books About Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Matilda Swift here with my co-host, Sam Cummings, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through missteps journey.

Each week we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is going to be niches or niches, depending on how you pronounce it.

We'll talk about that in a bit.

But before we get on to that, let's do our wins and whinges of the week.

Sam, what's yours?

I am going full on win this week, and I set up Facebook ads.

Oh, straight in there.

Straight in.

Just give us a quick recap of where we were at last time with Facebook ads, because we had an episode on it, so it's been very popular.

So I did actually go a bit rogue.

So I was just going to do a Facebook, like a few Facebook ads that were gonna get people to like my page.

And instead, I just did some Facebook ads to direct people to my website to buy books.

So, you know, just thought I'd just throw a little bit of money, like literally two pounds a day, just a continuous ad to see what kind of traction I get so I can start gathering information to then lead on to better ads.

Is this like a benchmarking thing?

It's not that you decided to throw down your advice from literally two weeks ago.

No, no, no, not at all.

It's like two pounds a day.

I'm not gonna be winning any awards here.

I'm not gonna be selling hundreds of books.

It's literally just a way to...

I had to restart my ads profile.

That's the word I'm looking for, my ads profile on Facebook.

So I figured if I just kind of run some ads, getting people to click links, then I'm gonna be getting some good traction with Facebook, get them to see me as like a legitimate business.

And so I just thought I might as well just start.

So I'm excited.

And why that rather than like liking your page or to a newsletter, why did you go for a straight ad?

I'm gonna be honest.

I was being super lazy.

I started an ad just to like remember what the process was and make sure my bank details are pulled through.

And it automatically did like a link instead of like a Facebook page like.

And I thought, well, rather than go back, let's go forward.

But I am-

That's a good attitude.

Yeah, let's go forward.

Yeah, like the universe obviously wanted me to do a link clicking ad.

Who am I?

The universe through Facebook came to you.

Through Facebook, yeah.

It's like, you know, you need to hear this.

So yeah, I just thought I'd start it as a little project that I'm going to review at the end of the month.

And then I'll probably set up the page liking one.

I just, yeah, just thought I'd throw the money at it.

I'm looking forward to thinking about that.

That is good, because I feel like I feel very far away from Facebook ads at the moment.

I was sort of hoping to do some in February, but I think following our chat, I really just want to get into the habit of making a page that is more of a viable page, that is not just a graveyard of things that I once thought were useful to post.

So I'm following your advice, and I'm gonna get my page up and running, and then I'm gonna run a variety of ads to get people to like my page, and then I will be running some sales ads.

So I will say, I'm gonna do as you say, not as you do, because I think that is very bad.

I am gonna do as I say as well, but I just got so excited to spend money.

Yeah, who doesn't love spending money on Facebook ads?

So I've also got a win for the week.

I have planned this week to start planning out my next series.

So I've got a series coming up that actually I'll talk about today, because it fits into the conversation about niches, niches.

And I sat down, I have a writing group on Wednesday evenings where I find it quite a useful time to kind of really focus on having a week where I'm not necessarily doing any writing.

It's a great chance to be like, I'm definitely gonna sit down and do something.

So I had planned to start outlining my new series, but when I sat down, I was flicking through the place where I was doing my planning, and I came across something that I'd been sort of thinking about before, which was about this new marketing tool that I don't want to go into too much depth now because I am maybe like 50% of the way to know what it's gonna be.

And because I felt really, when I first thought about it, I felt so excited and it kind of came out of our niching and branding work, because I felt like, what am I good at?

What do I already know how to do that I could do with these?

And that was some sort of companion to my books that bring in the thing that I want to say is my brand.

But I felt like instantly like, oh, I know exactly what it's gonna be.

And then when I sat down to originally start thinking about it when we were talking about this last year, I realized like, oh, actually the idea is very amorphous in my mind.

I've kind of got this like vague shape of something that feels really positive, but I don't know what it is.

So I left it for a little bit.

And on Wednesday, last Wednesday, I felt really excited to look at it again.

And it's one of those ones where it takes a lot of brain space to look at it because I could kind of do anything.

So it was a win to kind of want to tackle it again.

Where I got to by the end of that Wednesday session was I had written out the three options that I think are most viable and what they would look like.

I think one of them actually would be a huge amount of work and not very fun either for me or particularly for the reader.

So that was instantly, no thank you.

I could think, I'm sure there's a way to make it work, but it wasn't kind of filling me with joy.

So I think I'll leave that one.

And the other two, I want to draft versions of them.

So I'm drafting a version of this with my first book of my original series of Heathervale Mysteries.

I'm drafting one to see what it would look like.

And what I'm hoping is, is whenever I find the right style, I will use it for my brand new series that I will be talking about later today.

So big win to have kind of tackled what is a big kind of thinking amorphous project, which I could have kept putting off forever.

I'm still 100% on it, but I've got a couple of days off coming up because it is Chinese New Year, and I work for a Hong Kong company, so I get days off for that.

So I've got a couple of extra days off in which everyone will be at work, and I will be focused while also celebrating Chinese New Year because I enjoy that.

Well, that sounds amazing.

I love when the ideas come and you actually get to sit down and start molding them into something that looks more like an actual idea rather than just an insane thing.

So as you said, that kind of all ties in with what we're talking about today.

So how did you do this week with looking at like your niching slash niching?

Where are you at with this?

Okay, so the first place I'm at is that I'm going to pronounce it as niche, which I know is the great divide in this podcast.

It may be the end of us one day.

I'm going to say niche because I like the phrase niching down.

And I think there's like fun, catchy phrases in the community, like niches get riches.

So I think niche lends itself better to, you know, fun, positive phrases.

Even though it is the American pronunciation.

I can't believe that you wouldn't want to say niches get riches.

I'm just not that, you know, I'm not that chic.

Maybe one day, maybe that's like the fancy version of it.

Maybe one day when I feel really chic, I will go niches get riches.

But for now, yeah, I'm going to go niches.

So we talked about this last year.

We did.

So when we very first started meeting up weekly, we started with one of our all day meetings.

And in that we decided that we wanted to both have podcasts, which was great and very exciting, but you also thought we wanted to have some practice of our conversations and figure out what they would look like in order to make the podcast useful and not just as rambling more than we maybe do now.

So we started on something that we both had been thinking about a lot, I think, once you're at a certain stage in your writing career, and you've written a few books, and I'm sure some people come to it really early when they're mobius minded, but definitely if you're more of a coming from it from like a writing mindset, and you've been like a writing little kid, and you just want to put the books out there, maybe once you've got a few books in you, and I was like, Oh, actually, the people who are killing it are quite targeted in their niches.

I could also be that if I thought about it, a bit more.

So we're both at that stage, because we wanted to get more professional in our processes.

And so we were, we wanted to have as our first topic, thinking about niches and figure out what that meant.

And this was the first time when we had the situation where we said, we'll come back next week with our brainstorm on this topic.

And in fact, we are both a little bit extra.

So we both made Canva presentations about our niches.

We did research.

We thought about different aspects of it, and like what our readers wanted, what our competitors were doing.

And at the end of that, we both realized that actually we maybe weren't super sure on what the word niche meant.

So if I just pause there in kind of what I'm thinking, do you want to talk a bit more about that from your side of it?

And you can feel free to use the word niche, should you wish.

Yeah, I will be saying niche.

So apologies, readers, listeners, viewers.

Yes, so I think that was the difficult part, really, when we were talking about it originally, is there's like an umbrella.

And under this umbrella, you have branding, genre, niche.

And it's so easy to get like, I think branding is kind of like, covers everything.

But I think genre and niche is really easy to get confused.

And I think we were both doing that.

We were both like, really muddying the waters with what we were thinking, like who we were and what we were writing.

We weren't 100% clear in what the niche meant for us.

So I've been kind of re-looking at it this week.

And I looked back at what I'd done previously.

And I think from my point of view, what I came to realize was that the niche element is really like what I'm bringing to the story.

So for me, my niche is like my good things, like my strong points in my writing.

And trying to find those, trying to look at the strong points in my writing and what my main themes and topics are and what I excel at doing.

So I kind of looked at it as instead of looking outside to try and figure out what my niche is, I started to actually just look at myself and look at what I've written already and try and figure out like, is this like, are my current books already part of this idea that I have of my work?

And if not, how do I drill down to make them?

Does that make sense?

It does.

And I still feel like to an extent we are struggling with the word niche.

I think half of our niche is like, how is it different to sub-genre?

And where does like niche, stop and brand start?

Because I think when we reached our niche or niches, you know, we did the natural first things, looking at what are my closest, what do I consider my closest competitors to be?

What are their sub-categories?

Not helpful at all in cozies, because in fact Amazon sub-categories are really not reflective of what genres there are, what sub-genres there are.

So in Cozy Mysteries, there are a couple of sub-categories, but there's no sub-category for Paranormal Cozy, which is easily around half the genre, like half the top 100 is Paranormal Cozy, just totally ignored.

There are sub-categories for things like Animal Cozy, Crafts Cozy, Culinary Cozy.

There's nothing for Paranormal Cozy.

There are genres that have lots of things in common with it, but there isn't Cozy then into Paranormal.

There isn't really historical.

And if you look like 1920s Cozy, there's this enormous sub-genre, slash category.

Again, this is where I'm like falling down with the terminology.

And then I think starting to look at that and then thinking what is different between that and a niche and how is it different from branding?

So I also think we're looking at what do we already do a lot of, but trying to fit that in with what competitors are doing that I think are the closest people to me.

And I think I really want to think of as my niche culinary cozies.

But I'm not sure if that is too broad because that is kind of just a subcategory or subgenre.

But culinary cozy kind of feels like something that I do a lot, but I don't bring out enough.

It's all my books are culinary.

I have one series, The Heady Bill Mysteries, that are set in a small village where the Sleuth's best friend runs a cafe.

With lots of cakes.

And the other series is set in the back room of a greasy spoon, which is like a diner.

And one of the side characters runs a chocolate shop.

So constantly food.

All the time, that is what I'm doing about.

To me, that just feels so part of life and part of a cozy that I just don't register it and I don't bring it out enough.

I don't foreground it.

Maybe that's what I'm saying.

I don't make it a thing.

Even though it's significant and would be what people are maybe looking for.

And I don't know if that is enough to say that's a niche.

Because then when we're looking at branding, I went deeper into thinking British cozy is a real thing that like, again, I do a lot of all my books have things like traditional myths, locations, beautiful buildings, country houses, interesting, weird, quirky, you know, activities, traditional foods.

And I love those things.

I put them in all the time.

So then is my niche British culinary cozy?

Or is that too narrow?

Is culinary cozy my niche and British is my branding?

I think yes and no.

So I definitely think this is where we landed before, right?

Great, great understanding of this.

It's a lot of yes and no answers.

I think that your genre slash sub-genre is culinary cozy, but your niche, I've forgotten what the word even is.

My niche, my philosophical conundrum.

I think yes, I think it is the British element.

Because I've got this web page open in front of me because I've been using this to kind of try and frame it in my mind.

And it's from, it's the kobowritinglife.com.

So it's like the Kobo website about, and it's a blog post about finding your niche.

And one of the questions it asks is like, is your setting always the same or like kind of always the same?

And I think if you're, if the dominant thing about yours is that you're always set in like a British countryside, then I think that that is part of your niche, because like you are quintessentially British, culinary cozies.

And I think that because it's, if the location is like such a big deal, then that is part of your niche, because that's one of your selling points.

Yeah.

And like to me, it's such a big deal, but it's like, well, obviously that's where I write my stories, because why would you write them somewhere else?

Yeah.

But it's really like the wood for the trees.

Yes.

I have a similar thing where, like my current series is set in America, but because I really think there is a gap in the market, or in my mind, there's a gap in the market for more British fantasy, like young adult fantasies, I like the rest of all the books I've got in the pipeline and stuff at the moment, they are all set in the UK and is something that I think I would try and use as part of my niche, is like little villages with magic in them.

So I think if it's like a setting, if the setting is important, that's part of your niche.

Would we then say that like separate branding is to do with your humour or your like maybe addition of romance?

Like how would you separate?

Because I think we talked around about so many times that I really feel like it's clearly a complicated topic and we have maybe talked about it in different ways at different times, and it's really good to try and pin down where we landed.

And definitely I think it's a process for fun to go through and figure out what is the difference between a category, a genre, a niche, your brand.

So what do you think of as key to branding that is separate from niche?

I think branding is how you present your books and how you present yourself.

It's the outer layer before you get to the niche.

So it's like the wrapper of the chocolate bar.

You can recognize a Cadbury's chocolate bar by the wrapper, and then you open it and it's the particular Cadbury's taste.

Just because why not talk about food?

So to me, branding is who I am and how I present myself in terms of my books as a particular style of cover and colours, which obviously seems really obvious.

But then how you're not fitting into that with just genre convention?

That links into genre convention as well as what's expected of your covers and stuff.

But there are some people whose covers, they fit into the convention of their genre, but they are also really, you can tell it's theirs in some way, maybe a particular font that they're using, or even just the placement of particular things or little motifs that they've got going through.

So I think it all does tie in, but there are definite separations between them at the same time.

It's so difficult to talk about.

Yeah, I think we're not going to find, like, 100% we know it right now because we're still in the process of exploring it, and that is what we're having this conversation for, to figure out where it's worth putting our energy into.

Like, where are the questions still arising?

What do we want to still be figuring out?

So yeah, for me, I think what I want to figure out is, to me, British Culinary Cozy sort of feels like two different things.

And there are lots of British Culinary Cozy, so it definitely isn't two different things, but it's like, how do I foreground both at the same time without it seeming, like, messy?

I think a lot of Culinary Cozy authors really just focus on the culinary side of it, and even though they consistently have the same sort of setting, that I think they maybe more convey with their covers and with the things they talk about, rather than saying, I am an ex-area author, they're focused on the culinary, and you start to know what to expect because it's kind of subtly conveyed, which is maybe why I think of the British thing as being more branding related, because I will be in that niche, but it's not what I will say is my, like, it's not the out loud part, It's the quiet part that will just beam towards people with my branding waves.

Well, that's, at least you've like, nailed that part then, if you've decided that that is...

Please don't know, the vaguest word is answer out there.

Yes, well no, no.

If you don't want that to be like the thing, like your selling point, like a loud selling point, because you think your genre already conveys that, then that's a good, like you're putting the energy into your like your brand and your genre, and you're not going to have to try and really sell it in the actual content of the book.

So I think that's maybe like a thing that I think is the niche part is the content, not so much the genre.

Yeah.

It's what's in it.

So in this list that I've like been going through and writing out my own little answers and things, it's like what themes, if I look at my own writing, what themes do I return to again and again?

And instantly, I know what I always go back to.

And whether my characters have similar character traits, and all of my characters in some way do, because I like to, I mean, they're all different characters, but they all, I like to write very snarky teenagers, because I am a child of Buffy.

So all of my characters are just like, they could be in like Buffy and stuff.

My setting, if it's always the same, and for me, my settings really are a particular selling point of my stories.

And then also, this is probably more for me than, oh no, it could be for you as well, whether you have high, low or in between stakes.

So obviously, like, if you're a huge fantasy writer, you're gonna have like super high stakes, there's end of the world, it's gotta be saved, all this stuff.

So if you, like, if you're, if you're laying out stakes that your readers will know what to expect, I feel like my words just tumble out at the moment.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing with this topic, is that like, it's very much, it's hard to kind of pin it down without just talking about it.

So it is very much a kind of words tumble out process.

So I would definitely say I have come along.

I know it sounds like I'm still very vague about it, but it's like, I feel like I've come along miles from talking to you about it.

And it's actually surprisingly helpful to talk to somebody outside your genre, because I've had this conversation with other cozy writers of looking at what's the cozy market like now.

And I think to an extent, because everyone, maybe not everyone, but I know a lot of British cozy authors and British people are slightly more anxious than the most I would say.

I would say various British cozy authors that I have talked to, they're quite keen to kind of pin down where the cozy market is right now, or kind of share an understanding and talk about what's the next thing coming, rather than necessarily focusing on their own work and an understanding of branding a genre and niche.

There's a lot of, when you're talking to people inside your genre, there's a lot of conversation about fitting in.

And I think talking to somebody outside your genre really helps with what's gonna be our topic next week, which is the difference between standing out and fitting in.

And I think that is a more useful conversation once you've got a few books in your belt, at least, to figure out where, how do I wanna be both in the genre and be me?

Yeah, and that is really helpful and useful to talk about, to figure out, to make sure that you know what you need to be telegraphing to make your reader know that as well.

And I think it's pretty much like a work in progress.

It is, it's all a work in progress.

And it all really, it's so easy to look outside and see what other people are doing and think, like, should I be chasing them?

But the work really is, it's so much more important to look at yourself.

Like, what are you doing right now?

What's working?

What isn't working?

What is your niche if you're looking at all of your stuff?

And then how can you use what you're doing to progress?

I'm just like such more of an introspective person.

Because if I start looking at other people, it's just so off-putting because the competitive nature takes over and you just feel like you're at the back of the race.

I think the benefit of looking at other people is like, sometimes just seeing what sparks excitement in you, because I think that is easy to overlook.

So when I was looking at competitors and looking specifically at cosy, kind of cosy authors, one of my favourite people, they absolutely love following who is worth following whatever genre you write in is Ellie Alexander.

And she has tried published.

She has self-published something recently that I think was a companion book that I think was always going to be a little bit small.

So she self-published it just to kind of try a new marketing avenue.

She has got a great website.

Her social media is fantastic.

She's got such a warm presence and she loves Colour Me Cosy so much.

She has a series where the cafe, I think, is or the restaurant is called TORT, T-O-R-T-E.

And she makes videos from the TORT test kitchen, which is just her kitchen, right?

It's her kitchen, done up really nice little books in the background.

But she makes videos and you can see the joy she has of like testing the recipes for her books.

She absolutely adores it.

And she unusually has a series of books that is about a beer brewer, which alcohol is not usually a big feature in Cozy's.

But again, it's the same thing.

She's obsessed with flavor.

She's from, I want to say Portland or somewhere near there where you know, it's a big brewing area and lots of microbreweries.

And she brings that same joy of flavor and the culinary aspect of the craft beers.

And I think she has gone into the culinary genre really, really deeply, but also she has this playfulness.

So one of her series has a Shakespeare festival in the town where it is, which in fact is what is in her real town.

And I think to some extent her niche is just like her enthusiasm, which is really hard to figure out.

Like, can that be my niche?

Yes.

That's why I like watching people like seeing what are you enthusiastic about, how do you telegraph that?

Yes.

I think that that is a huge part.

Maybe like we should have started with that because I think your niche is your passion.

It is.

It's like it's the parts of your story that make you want to write the story.

Like if you look at all of your back catalog and decide that, and see like what made you want to write that story?

What was it that gave you that like fun spark of an idea that made you think I could write a book about that?

That in itself is part of your niche because it's the spark.

And if you're like passionate about it, then you're excited to tell the people about it, and then other people get excited about it.

And doing social media about it feels fun rather than a bit of drag.

It feels so much more fun.

Because you're just sharing something you love.

So yes, I think we've talked around this a little bit, but as I said, next week's topic, we are continuing with the focus podcast on branding and being, and we're going to be talking about standing out and fitting in, which will be a continuation of this where we have, I think, hopefully figured out a little bit more of how we kind of think about our branding.

Do you have any thoughts already on that?

I do, I do like, because of we've been doing this part of our little meetups and stuff for a while is thinking about branding and stuff that in the back of my mind I have got things ticking over.

And the whole standing out and fitting in thing is a forever constant, like puzzle that I'm trying to figure out.

And personally, for me, as well as this, like my next week's topic task that I'm going to be doing on the side, with all the other stuff that I do is, is looking more at my competitors.

And I think that this will tie in really nicely because I really need to like sit down and spend some hours doing that.

And I've been putting it off.

So I'm excited to try and see where I can elbow in and make space for myself.

Yeah, I mean, I think I've made space for yourself.

I think one thing that I keep kind of returning to both in this area and in my other mindset work is just like, I have a real tendency to feel like someone has to give me permission to do something.

I think that comes from like, I was a very academic kid, and you know, you do the exams and you get the good grades and you get the certificate, and then you can go and do the next big exam.

And I'm always waiting for like somebody to say, yes, you're good enough to go to this next stage.

And I think when you see people, and I've heard a few mentions of this, when you see people succeeding in self-publishing, it's often people who have met a market niche.

So they are definitely in market, but they have added something incredibly authentic and unique about it.

And it's people who have often what you might define as like broken the rules.

So in Cozy, it's often it's people who are a bit swarier than you would expect, or people who, like Alexander does, writes about alcohol, whole series of rice and alcohol, which is not very Cozy, really, but it so works.

Or, you know, you're a little bit racy.

So it is people who are standing out, but authentically.

And I think that is really the hard thing is like figuring out which parts of me are the obedient academic student girl, who actually I should leave those parts behind.

And what can I take forward that is like the slightly dangerous edgy part of me, which not necessarily swear you are related, but like edgy and that like only I could do this and I'm thrilled to do it.

I want to find that.

Yeah, because I see that in you.

That's like that's the version of you that I see is the person who knows what they're doing and just goes and does it.

So I think it's definitely your mindset because you are that person.

Yeah, I think so.

And I just want to make sure that I'm doing it on the page and that I nail it in my next series.

That is where I feel the enthusiasm to keep going with the series rather than think, Oh, because Cozy series can continue forever.

So it really feels like a decision to drop a series that feels like a failure.

So I want to make sure this new series is like a thousand percent me and I will love writing it, even if it breaks some of the rules, quote rules for Cozy's.

As long as it is meeting my audience's needs and making everyone happy, including me, that is what I want.

And that's what I'm really interested about.

So I'm going to have some thoughts, maybe not a finalized thought, but some strong thoughts by next week on that.

I'm very excited for you.

It's making me enthusiastic.

I'm not even thinking about myself.

I'm just thinking about you.

And hopefully everyone feels the same way.

I think this is a, I definitely felt intimidated about the topic when we first started of like, niching and branding and genres.

It felt so big and like, like I'm not Amazon.

How am I going down, like figuring out what genres there are and categorizing everything?

It's huge.

But now to have to walk through it and to kind of come out the other side feels really like, I can't wait to start this new series.

And I really want to do it in the best way possible.

And I'm hoping that other people are inspired by this conversation to have similar thoughts and to have conversations with their friends, their writer friends to kind of get to the same stage.

So yeah, we're going to look forward to this.

I'm looking forward to having our chat next week.

And I will see you then.

You will.

I'll see you later.

Goodbye.

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