Learn From My Mistakes, Gain 100+ Followers, And Find Your Niche In Less Than A Year With These 10 Tips.

Experiential Advice For New Writers

As a Christian, practicing what you preach is imperative. "No hypocrisy" is the gist of the Ten Commandments, excluding the seemingly oxymoronic though more cautionary Fifth Commandment, which I will return to later. Before I lose your attention, this post aligns with my writing niche more than my theology niche, so bear with me.

Read Jeremiah 32:17, Matthew 19:26, Psalm 147:5, Isaiah 40:28, James 1:17, Ephesians 3:20–21, 2 Corinthians 9:8, and 1 Corinthians 12:4–11 to understand omnipotence, omniscience, infinite grace, and spiritual gifts. I serve that God. So it's hypocritical for me to gate-keep anything and claim I'm Christian. God provides all I need to succeed, and you can access that same God. For those who believe "the keys of the kingdom" in Matthew 16:18–19 are in Saint Peter's possession in Heaven, I mean no disrespect by implying anyone on Earth can gate-keep, and certainly not me.

To those of you trying to miss your blessing by discrediting the rest of this post and remaining stuck on the Fifth Commandment comment, let's put this to rest. Yes, Matthew 10:34–36 suggests a battle of sons and daughters against fathers and mothers, respectively. However, read more to understand that this excerpt is about right being right and wrong being wrong regardless of who it is — dad, mom, granddad, sister, cousin, boss, etc. You can read for yourself because I've overexplained enough; know that gatekeeping is a sin in whatever profession you are in — except, of course, the literal security guard at a gate. You aren't the first person and won't be the last to have that information, skill, or positioning. God got you.

So when your writer "friend" tells you, "Just write," send them this post if they claim to be Christians. Though that is valid, they are bitter, showing whether you know it. I've been there. You spend so much time and money trying to find success, and once you think you're onto something, here comes your inexperienced friend who wasn't with you shooting in the gym, asking you for the secret to your good jump shot. "The audacity!"

Allow me to correct that. "The flattery!"

In a world of billions of people, this person asked you how to do something they could learn from so many others — who are proven to be better than you — YouTube, an online course, Masterclass, and many other sources. Be thankful someone recognizes and respects you enough to seek your mentorship. Take the opportunity to share what you have learned because if you can't share it clearly, I've got bad news for you. You still don't know what you're doing.

Even if you can explain it clearly, and you have not reached the level of success you know this person is asking for shortcuts towards, again, I get your resentment, but again, I have news for you. What you're doing is still a hobby. At best, you're a consistent volunteer.

The best-case scenario is to steward what you've learned with grace and honesty, making you better through self-auditing. Moreover, confirming your fan allows you to gain a mentee and receive free marketing and promotion.

Now, returning to you, the original reader looking for practical advice, let's start here. In under 365 days, I wrote 58 or more posts and found that only 20 have been worth keeping for my pending portfolio. The three things I look for in a post that I consider "worth keeping for my portfolio" are as follows:

1. It showcases my niche(s). (This one shows my top two: writing and theology/Christianity.)

2. It is interesting enough for me to enjoy writing. (See any of these for examples of non-niche related posts: DBW, ALLTPR, and 40+TILI35Y)

3. It shows my potential; either an old post that I addressed much later in a better way or surprised me when I finished writing it.

Backtracking for the skimmers looking to get answers, here's what I just said in sequence:

Just write. I published at least 58 posts to Medium.com, 15 books, and countless Tweets to feature nine books, be confident in 20 posts, and share 344 Tweets; these numbers are all subject to change as I develop. Hopefully, you can succeed in fewer attempts, but it's okay if you don't.

Know how you could die happy. I know this is dark, but the truth is we all die. I have so many things I want to accomplish outside of my writing where this can apply, but unlike family and career goals, you have absolute control here. I have ideas I should have written almost a decade ago, but I only focused on planning to the end recently. If I pass away today — God forbid — I can say I won't be happy with just this blog and the books I have out, and there is such thing as enough in this realm. It's not a dollar amount. There's no specific number of books sold. It's simply completing and illustrating my vision the way only I can. You must strive to do the same. Combining these two steps will help you find your niche.

Frequently and consistently audit your writing. To start, get on a writing schedule. Include rest. I don't write on Saturdays. I devote some time to my writing every other day of the week. Some days are for putting pen to paper. Other days are for brainstorming or organizing thoughts. Just be consistent.

Second, and more specifically, ten works for me because I produce in units of 10. I had about ten book ideas before settling on five. I wrote about 20 book outlines before I settled on about three. In My first ten publications, I only wrote three kinds of books (One book on words, four daily readers, and five poetry books). I wrote about 100 essays and short stories to realize I like blogging about Christianity and personal development, with a confused period of philosophy, theology, relationships, cautionary dating tales, mental health, politics, race, class, and more. I would have skipped all this if I had journaled every month, week, or day. Just pick a consistent and realistic milestone and check in with yourself.

Publish now. Edit later. If you consistently do the first three steps, you will have the content because "You can't spell consistent with content." Seriously, though, if you don't write, you have nothing to audit. If you don't audit, you will have no idea what you enjoy writing and have the ability to write in your less inspired periods of life, like when you're not getting paid for your work, which is the vast majority of your career. In the meantime, you should also track what your readers respond to. Your audience is the people that eventually pay you, whether it's them directly or the people that talk to about your writing. In the slow periods, you will discover how quickly no one cares until they care.

Of course, you want to retain your audience before you warm up, but no one is perfect, and only you have your perspective, which is why people read your work. Writing a bunch of imperfect stuff with no pressure to be better next time only hurts you in the long run if you hope to publish one day. If the first person to give an opinion of your work is an editor or publisher, those edits and criticisms will hurt a lot more than if you built a steady flow of compliments from friends and meaningful hate from strangers. Though I am all for ripping the bandaid off, I do not advise this for anyone just starting. It can be so discouraging, even crippling. You have a perspective, and it's worth honing in every way possible. Publishing more frequently until you get your viral moment is just ripping off a bunch of bandaids, so it won't hurt as much as the scars get bigger.

Stop writing the stuff you only write about less than 50% of the time. After writing all this stuff, you have feelings towards specific topics over others. The comments, or lack thereof, will affect you differently about particular topics.

For me, it was basketball. People always have opinions about writing and religion, so I learned to expect, accept, and respect them. Though people have views about basketball, if I have not seen you play, coach, or had a live conversation with you about it, for some reason, those disagreeing comments hurt me a bit more. Additionally, putting all my time, effort, heart, and soul into a piece about my favorite NBA team with no response, while Stephen A. Smith goes viral for the same take without the effort — or even worse, an inaccurate one — stings me. I know it's foolish even to compare my audience to Stephen A. Smith, and I don't mean to diminish all the time and work he has put into his craft to build that audience, but what does he know about my Wizards, you know?

I'm sure you don't, but if I am so attached to the project that a disagreement might affect me emotionally, I don't need to write about it, nor do you. The goal right now is to get 100 people to follow you and find your niche, which is much different from creating an impactful legacy and defending your beliefs and preferences. Imagine arguing with a middle schooler about your adult life. Again, I'm sure you can't, and you think it's wise not to engage. It's the same thing with building your audience and finding your niche. First of all, you need to get around adults. Next, you need to establish that you are listening and give them a reason to listen to you when you speak. Then, they will listen.

If you have implemented the above steps and are looking for more specific Medium tips, subscribe as I learn and share. One of the first things I'm practicing and developing is mindfulness and intentionality with my headings. You can skim this article to see exactly what I mean.

Here's a simple enough idea to try. Though writing is for reading, times have changed. Adaptability to achieve your goals (followers and finding a niche worth writing about) is essential.

I plan to incorporate this more complex series of ideas organically: read and apply as you grow. It is worth emphasizing the importance of organic growth. It is obvious when someone is using AI to knock out a bunch of posts. If you need quick money, there are much easier ways than writing. To be a writer, you must practice patience and embrace the journey.

I can't prove the effectiveness, nor can I prove what I am trying to affect more — the Medium.com algorithm or the ever-changing attention span of the average blog reader, but adding a minimum of two relevant and high-quality pictures seems to improve how consistently I get and retain new followers.

Finally, as cliche as this may be, read more and intentionally read stuff you like to know what is getting read and discover what you want to see more of so that you can write original work.

Comment with thoughts or share this post with someone who needs the reminder. Subscribe and Clap if you find yourself meditating on something different and want more thoughts like this.

I also have a Twitter/X with mostly basketball content.