The Top 10 Most Lucrative Writing Niches for Freelancers

What should I write?

That’s one of the first questions all writers must ask themselves, and if you’re a freelancer, choosing a niche is especially important for your journey as a writer. Although you might think that having a lot of niches available might be a good thing, it often leads to decision paralysis instead.

Instead of picking and choosing niches for years until you find the perfect fit, it’s much better to simply look through profitable niches, pick one that appeals to you, and start working in it immediately.

In this article, we’ll go over the 10 most profitable freelance writing niches.

What Makes a Niche Profitable?

It’s well-known popular wisdom that you’ll get more money as a writer by specializing in a singular niche or industry than you would covering a broad, unspecified range of topics. This is because clients are much more likely to pay someone who knows what they’re doing to work for them than someone who is learning about the topic for the first time.

Now, profitable niches aren’t constant, as formerly massively profitable industries can go down the gutter rather quickly, as we’ve seen with the COVID-19 pandemic.

With that being said, there are a few factors that determine how profitable a niche will be:

• Competition: The more freelancers want to work in a niche, the less it will pay. This is the biggest reason that the “gaming” niche generally pays pennies, if at all.
• Revenue: The more money your pieces can bring to the company, the more they’ll pay you.
• Demand: New and trending niches usually have a lot more client demand than there are freelance writing in it.

Ideally, you’ll be looking for a niche in a profitable industry that has few other writers in it, but a lot of client demand for content. Marketing yourself as a content matter expert makes landing writing jobs that much easier. 

1. Ebooks

Ebooks are marketing tools used by a variety of businesses. They are both great for generating new leads and customers, as well as making the company appear as if they are experts in the area.

Ebooks will usually get published on Amazon under a variety of file formats and be around 10-50 pages long. They are much like a long blog post. In them, you’ll want to show the reader as much useful information that you can through how-tos, tutorials, topic overviews, and the like.

Now, the amount you’ll earn from a single ebook can vary quite a bit, ranging from the low $500s to $5,000 and up.

If you’re good at writing long-form content and don’t want to limit yourself to just one topic of writing, ebooks might be just the niche for you.

2. Case Studies

Case studies will give the company a lot of revenue because they’re one of the best pieces of writing to drive sales. There are very few writers that choose case studies as their niche despite how profitable they are due to the steep learning curve involved.

On the other hand, if you did well in your science classes at school, or you don’t mind learning a new skill, case study writing can be extremely lucrative.

The standard format for a case study is as follows:

• A description of the customer’s issue
• An explanation of the company-provided solution
• A display of excellent results achieved through the solution
• A conclusion guiding the reader to make a purchase

3. Email Writing

Although email writing might sound extremely simple at first, it’s actually quite difficult to pull off well. However, successful email writers can earn extremely lucrative sums.

With that being said, you’ll need to have some experience in copywriting or at least a solid grasp of common practices. The difficulty in email writing comes mostly from the fact that you’ve got to engage the recipient before you give them a sales pitch.

Although some might think email marketing to be dead, Hubspot conducted a study showing that email brings in $38 for every $1 spent on it.

This means that most of your clients will pay very well; however, your writing will need to constantly perform and boost their sales.

4. Video Scripts

Videos have become a staple of business-to-customer communication these days. Although we might envy some popular YouTube stars for how much they earn, their scriptwriters are nothing to scoff at either.

YouTube has become one of the most used search engines out there, and there’s always a need for more content. This niche has a lot of variance in terms of income. If you’re working for a 20-year-old YouTuber just starting out, you can’t expect much. However, if you’re working for a multinational company to write scripts for their promotional videos, you’ll be earning quite a bit more.

5. Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is a form of writing where you don’t get a byline or any kind of name recognition for your piece.

Ghostwriting is extremely common for Amazon-published books, whether they’re self-published books made by individuals or large publishing houses. Regardless of whether you work for a company or an individual, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of every piece.

As books tend to be rather long and require a ton of research to write well, in tandem with the fact you won’t get name recognition for it, you can up your rates significantly. In fact, it’s not uncommon for writers to start off their ghostwriting careers charging up to $10,000 per book.

6. Sales, Ads & Landing Pages

If you’re really good at writing sales copy that sells your clients’ products, this niche might be ideal for you.

Writing highly converting advertisements pays big bucks — and there are so many types of ads that companies will employ you to write. Video banner ads, Google ads, social media campaigns, pop-up ads ... the list is endless.

However, writing a sales page will require that you have amazing copywriting abilities, as well as the right sensibilities to write them in a manner that actually sells the product. 

Because these skills are so rare, you’ll easily be able to pull rates between $750 and $3,000 for any landing page you write. And firms are always on the lookout for great landing page writers, as a good landing page can easily skyrocket their sales numbers.

7. Finance

We’re switching away from content types and going into topics now. If you’d like your niche to be a wide area of topics, look through the six above. On the other hand, if you’d like to specialize and become a trusted expert in a single topic, you’re in the right spot.

The first of these niches is finance. It’s no surprise that being able to write well about earning money can earn you money.

This niche requires good attention to detail and impeccable grammar. Although readers will appreciate you bringing some life into these topics, try not to add too much fluff, or they might turn away from it.

8. Cryptocurrency

This is one of those areas that is trending and has a lot of demand, but there are not a lot of writers to cover the demand.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain is a niche that will require you to have a lot of technical knowledge in the area, and you’ll need to learn all of the terms commonly used in the industry. If you don’t mind that, you’ll soon find that the rates are excellent, even for beginners in the industry.

It’s one of the most profitable niches you can jump into. If you’re interested in crypto or blockchain and are able to explain topics in the area in an intuitive manner, then this niche might be ideal for you.

9. CBD/Alternative Health

With legislations worldwide being more and more CBD-friendly, it’s becoming a hot topic not only for politicians but also for businesses looking to profit off of the trend.

If you’re knowledgeable on the topic of CBD and its products, then pitching to CBD shops, dispensaries, or CBD-related blogs is a great idea. The industry is always on the lookout for new writers, as there are few writers in the industry compared to the demand.

Other alternative health topics are also quite popular. So if you’re well-versed in alternative medicine, you could give that a try as well.

10. Real Estate

As you can see, most industries that make a lot of money will pay a lot of money. And real estate makes a lot of money for those who are successful in it. Because of this, the niche offers great rates, although it can be a bit difficult to get into.

Another perk of real estate writing is that it can be quite easy to become an expert locally. Rather than having to compete with freelancers across the world, you can write about local house buying guides or legislations and only compete with writers close to you.

Closing Words

Although the profitability of a niche is extremely important (we all need money for food), it’s important not to forget that your niche should be something you enjoy writing about. After all, it’s extremely easy to get burnt out as a freelance writer, and it’ll come much quicker if you’re writing about things you don’t care about.

You will find that when you are writing about something that interests you, the quality of your work will be higher. This will open up the door for you in more ways than one. 

When you’re selecting a niche, just take a deep breath and pick the one that appeals to you the most, as long as it’s profitable. If it isn’t, repeat this process until it is.