Coffee With Cole: The Digital Writing Podcast

Episode Summary: How To Find Your Niche In Content Writing

Host: Nicolas Cole
Date: December 21, 2025

Overview

This episode features Nicolas Cole sharing his expert roadmap for finding a profitable niche in the content writing industry. Drawing on his own journey from low-paid generalist to highly sought-after ghostwriter and founder of the Premium Ghostwriting Academy, Cole breaks down the critical importance of specialization—why it dramatically increases income, how to identify your ideal service and industry, and practical steps to avoid the “generalist trap.” The episode is packed with real-world examples, actionable advice, and Cole’s signature energetic, candid delivery.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power and Profit of Niching Down

Personal Case Study (00:00–02:35):
Cole recalls how specializing took him from $20 blog posts to $2,000 thought leadership articles—without increased experience or effort, just a strategic repositioning in the market.
- Quote: “The only difference is that I called myself a freelance writer who did everything... Here I said, I am a ghostwriter who specializes in ghostwriting thought leadership articles for founders. That’s the only difference.” (01:30)
The Stained Glass Parable (00:45–01:15):
He uses an analogy: if you had a shattered stained glass window, would you hire a general window fixer or a specialist? The choice is obvious, and that logic applies directly to writing.

Why Specializing Makes You More Money (02:35–10:40)

Pricing Power (02:45–05:00):
- Specialists charge premium rates because clients perceive them as the highest-value solution to specific problems.
- Quote: “When you are a specialist, you inherently can charge more than generalists.” (03:10)
Efficiency Creation (05:00–07:45):
- By doing the same service repeatedly, Cole’s agency built templates, processes, and hired efficiently—scaling to a multimillion-dollar business.
- Operational model: duplicated small writer/editor teams for massive content output.
Higher Profit Potential (07:45–10:40):
- Specialization allows for more clients without extra time/complexity.
- Example: A generalist might handle 3 clients, but a specialist with systems could handle 10—meaning dramatically higher earnings.

How To Niche Down: Service vs. Industry (10:41–22:00)

Two Main Axes:
- Service: What you offer (e.g., newsletters, email courses, social content)
- Industry: Who you serve (e.g., SaaS, finance, health and wellness)
Recommended Starting Point (12:30):
- Begin by specializing in a service; it’s easier and lets you refine your process before zeroing in on an industry.
Three High-Value Writing Services (13:20–17:00):
1. Educational Email Courses (EECs)
  - Highly profitable, effective for lead gen
  - Example: Cole’s opt-ins at ghostwritingblueprint.com
  - Quote: “You can get paid a lot of money to build these... we show them how to charge five grand, seven grand, ten grand per EEC.” (15:10)
2. Newsletter Ghostwriting
  - Builds recurring client relationships; underpins long-term digital products or sales funnels
  - Quote: “Newsletters are foundational for every business.” (16:15)
3. Short-Form Social Content
  - Drives traffic to opt-ins/newsletters—pick one channel, like LinkedIn or X, and go deep
Moving Towards Industry Specialization (18:00–22:00):
- Over time, specialize further by learning the vernacular, rules, and quirks of a particular industry.
- Information Advantage: Even a small edge in understanding an industry’s insider language and compliance rules makes you far more desirable.
  - Example: Finance and health/wellness writers must understand legal/regulatory restrictions.

Overcoming The Scarcity Myth (22:01–25:45)

“Too Niche, Not Enough Opportunity” Fallacy:
- Cole addresses the fear that being too specialized limits work, using the “niche/constellation” idea: even hyper-specific services in one industry open doors to many sub-audiences.
- Example: Specializing in real estate newsletters opens work with agents, brokers, commercial, multi-family, and accompanying sequences (upsell, call booking, etc.).
- Quote: “Your opportunity is not limited. All you need is a tip of the spear, something you specialize in, and then you start to realize there’s all these sub-audiences.” (24:45)
- “If you just say, I do everything, nobody can hear you.” (25:30)

The Hardest—and Most Important—Skill: Saying No (25:46–End)

Plastic Solo Cup Analogy (25:50–28:00):
You don’t change your entire factory’s operation for one random request—yet most writers do, saying yes to off-niche jobs and killing efficiency.
- Quote: “You can’t end up building dominance in a niche… if you’re constantly crushing your efficiencies and crushing your pricing power and crushing your profit by saying yes to every single person who walks into your factory. You can’t do it.” (27:25)
Protecting Capacity and Building Clarity (28:01–End):
- Turning down off-niche work isn’t lost opportunity—it’s protecting your valuable focus and process, even at advanced income levels.
- The temptation to stray never goes away—learning to say no is essential for ongoing growth.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Niching down, it’s not just a positioning choice. Niching down is actually how you unlock these different tranches of monetization.” (10:30)
“An information advantage isn’t 20 years of expertise, it’s knowing the lingo and rules of your target industry.” (19:45)
“Every time you say no, you’re not limiting your opportunity. You’re protecting your capacity.” (28:20)
“The skill to build is learning how to say no.” (27:45)

Timestamps for Key Segments

00:00–02:35: Cole’s income transformation story; stained glass parable
02:36–10:40: Three pillars: pricing power, efficiency, profit
10:41–13:19: How to niche—service vs. industry approach
13:20–17:00: Top three profitable writing services
18:00–22:00: Industry specialization and information advantage
22:01–25:45: Debunking the “not enough clients” myth / client constellation concept
25:46–28:00: Plastic solo cup analogy—learning to say no
28:01–End: The ongoing challenge (and necessity) of sticking to your niche

Tone & Style

Throughout the episode, Cole maintains an enthusiastic, no-nonsense tone—mixing motivational storytelling, clear frameworks, and memorable analogies. He’s direct, practical, and empathetic to writer anxieties, but always returns to his central thesis: the riches are in the niches, and boundaries unlock both income and creative freedom.

Summary prepared for listeners seeking deep insights and actionable advice on carving out a lucrative, sustainable writing niche—directly from one of the world’s leading digital writing coaches.

Transcript

A (0:00)

As soon as I niched down as a freelance writer, I went from charging $20 to write blog posts to charging $2,000 to write thought leadership articles for founders and executives. And today, I run the largest training program on the Internet for writers who want to niche down, specialize in a service, and charge a premium. It's called Premium Ghostwriting Academy. And in this video, I'm going to walk you through the same roadmap that I walk every writer in our program through for free. So by the end, you know how to niche down in the world of content writing, too. Okay, let's start with why niching down makes you so much money. And whenever I talk about this, I like explaining it with a really simple story. So let's say you just bought a new house, okay? And in this house, you have a beautiful stained glass window. And one day, your neighbor's kid fires a hockey puck through it. Shatters everywhere. Now, which person are you going to hire to fix that stained glass window? Are you going to hire the generalist? So the person who says, I can fix any window, or are you going to hire the specialist who says, actually, I don't do all those other windows. I only specialize in fixing stained glass windows. Which person are you going to hire? You are going to hire the second person every single time because you have a very specific problem, and you're looking for someone who solves that specific problem, right? And this is why niching down makes you so much money is A, it. It instantly differentiates you, B, when that person who has that specific problem is looking for a solution, they're going to assume that you're the best possible person for the job. And C, there's actually three reasons why niching down makes you so much money. So I want to walk you through each one. So the first is pricing power, okay? When you are a specialist, you inherently can charge more than generalists. This is why as soon as I stopped calling myself a freelance writer and I started calling myself a ghostwriter for fat founders, specializing in writing thought leadership articles, I went from charging $20 per blog post to charging upwards of $2,000 per article. Now, nothing was different about the work. And this didn't happen 10 years later. In both cases, I was still 26 years old and I was writing 800 words. Same work, same same age, same experience. The only difference is that I called myself a freelance writer who did everything here. And here I said, I am a ghostwriter who specializes in ghostwriting thought leadership articles for founders. That's the only difference. This is why being a specialist is so important. Because it gives you pricing power, instantly differentiates you from everyone else. The second way that specializing makes you more money is this is how you create efficiencies, okay? If you are providing the same service over and over and over again. So here I was writing thought leadership articles, okay? This was the only thing that we did. We didn't do newsletters, we didn't do short form content, we didn't do video scripts, we didn't do landing pages. The only thing we did was 800 word thought leadership articles, okay? We scaled my agency to essentially the size of a small publication. In any given month, we were producing more articles in Inc. Magazine, Forbes, okay? So we became very successful at doing this. And the reason that my agency was able to grow to over 2 million in annual revenue, right? We had 20 plus employees, we had 80 plus clients. The reason we were able to do that is because we were doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Okay? So every team, just to show you how this worked, every team was, we had a writer and we had an editor. And we knew that each team could maybe handle, let's see, probably about 10 clients. And so as we scaled, what did we do? We just took this team and we just hit copy paste and we just duplicated it. We did the same thing over and over again. That is how you create efficiency. It is very difficult for you to create efficiencies when you say that you do everything because every client is different, every client is in a different industry, you're providing a different service. You have no ability to create efficiency. And so efficiency is what limits two things. It limits your time and it limits the amount of money that you can make on the time front. The more you contemplatize, the more that you can get done in the same amount of time, right? So if you have five clients and you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, well, now you have a bunch of free time because you can create templates, you can create processes, now you can create automations, you can use AI to help you, right? If you're not doing the same thing over and over again, you're doing everything manually and you have a very high switching cost, which leads to the third, which is increasing profit. So as you have pricing power, which allows you to dominate a niche, and as you build efficiencies, this is what allows you to take on more clients, which means you can make more money. So maybe a freelance writer goes Oh, I can only handle three clients at a time. But you go, you know, I've created efficiencies, I'm doing the same thing over and over again. I actually can handle 10 clients. That's a huge profit difference. Right? This person is severely limited. Now you are able to make three times more than the average freelance writer. And so niching down, it's not just a positioning choice. Niching down is actually how you unlock these different tranches of monetization. Okay, this is really, really important. Now whenever I explain this, a question that people ask often is, okay, Cole, that all makes sense. But how am I supposed to niche down? Well, especially if you're providing a writing service, you want to think about niching down in two different ways. You could niche down by industry or you could niche down by service. Now the goal is you actually want to do both. Okay, so I'll give you an example. When I was building my agency, we got to a point where I realized that our sweet spot, our true niche was I ghostwrite or my agency. We ghostwrite 800 word thought leadership articles specifically for series A to series B startup founders. Yes, we also worked with executives, we worked with New York Times bestselling authors. We even worked with Olympic athletes and Grammy winning musicians. Okay. We did all sorts of stuff. But our sweet spot industry was actually working with startup founders that had just raised a really big series A. Okay. So yes, you can get this specific. If you're stuck though, I think it is much easier to start with the service. Okay. There's really three services I recommend. Everyone starts with today. So one is educational email course ghostwriting. So this is a free opt in. So we actually use these for all of our different verticals in our different businesses. So if you go to start writing online, for example, we have a five day educational email course for free that teaches people our frameworks on how to start writing online. We also have an ec so this would be start writing online. We also have one for ghostwriting. If you go to ghostwritingblueprint.com you will see our free educational email course on how you can get started ghostwriting. These are incredibly effective opt ins. All right? So most people don't realize that the fastest way to build a newsletter or the fastest way to build your newsletter list is, is actually not sending people directly to a newsletter, it's sending them to a high value free opt in. And then at the end of the eec, you put everyone inside of your newsletter. Okay. So you can get paid a lot of money to build These in our premium Ghostwriting Academy, for example, we teach ghostwriters how to build these educational email courses and sell them to businesses. We show them how to charge five grand, seven grand, ten grand per eec. So per project. The second service is newsletters. So newsletter ghostwriting is really, really effective and very, very important. So what happens when you get someone's email? Well, they go through a five day educational email course. You don't want them to never hear from you ever again. So you should put them into a high value newsletter. That newsletter is how you nurture them, right? You could remind them, hey, I have this digital product for sale. Hey, I wrote these books. How do you think I have driven so many sales for, for these books? The Art and business of Ghostwriting and the Art and business of Online Writing. Well, inside our eec, we mention them. And then after the eec, we nurture people forever in our newsletter and also mention them. Right? So this creates a really great long term funnel for any product, any service. This is how you get people on sales calls, right? Newsletters are foundational for every business. And then third, if you have an EEC and you're nurturing people on the newsletter, what's the last thing you need? Well, you need traffic, right? Everyone now wants to build a personal brand. Everyone wants to drive organic traffic. We're going to drive traffic from social to the educational email course. Get more people on our newsletter, nurture them via newsletter and the cycle repeats. If you are a writer today and you are not providing one or two of these services, you are leaving a tremendous amount of money on the table. Because every single business needs all three of these. And the takeaway shouldn't be, oh, I have to do all three of them. No, you could build a seven figure agency just building educational email courses. You can build a seven figure agency just ghostwriting newsletters. You can build a seven figure agency just writing short form content on social platforms. And not just every social platform, just LinkedIn or just X. Right? So specializing is really important. I would say that it is much easier to start by picking a service that you want to specialize in first. Because then over time you can discover which industry do you want to play in. So here's why the industry component is so important. Most people don't realize that every industry has its own vernacular, Every industry has its own slang, Every industry has its own rules, every industry has its own regulations. Okay, so for example, if you were to ghostwrite in the finance industry, well, the average person might not realize that when you're writing for people in finance. If you're writing for like a fintech startup, there are actually laws of about what you can and can't say. So when you're writing content, very often these companies will run everything you write. Blog posts, newsletters, short form content, doesn't matter. They will run it through their legal team. If you are a writer who specializes in this industry and you know the lingo of the finance industry and you know the laws and regulations, you are 10 times more valuable than the average freelancer who goes, I'll write whatever you want. But I don't really have experience in that industry. You have what I like to call an information advantage. An information advantage is not, I'm an expert with 20 years of experience. An information advantage is just, hey, you know, I've spent some time in this industry. I know how people talk, I know the lingo, and I also understand sort of the laws and regulations. Health and wellness is another big one. There are laws about what you can and can't say about the probiotic that you're helping some company sell, right? You can't say this probiotic cures cancer. You can't say that. Right? And so if you don't know those things, then how are you supposed to write in that industry? And this is why information advantage is so important. And so, yes, start by specializing in a service, but over time, you also want to specialize in an industry. Now, of course, every time I explain this, the big objection I hear is, yeah, but Cole, if I get that specific, if I get that specific about a service, if I get that specific about an industry, that's going to limit my opportunity. I'm not going to have enough people to work with. And I hope you've realized by this point in the video that that is not true. But let me just prove it one more, one more way. So when you niche down, you create what's called a niche constellation, a client constellation, okay? What this means is let's say that you specialize in newsletters, okay? And let's say over time you learn that your industry is real estate. Okay? Now that might seem really specific until you start building the constellation in real estate. Think about all the different sub audiences that you could tap into. You could tap into real estate agents, you could tap into real estate marketing agencies, you could tap into real estate brokers for commercial properties. You could specialize in working with real estate brokers in multifamily. Right. Apartment complexes and with newsletters. Why can't you provide not just newsletters, but you could also provide EECs, and you could also provide other sequences. Right? Maybe the person doesn't just need a newsletter. They need an upsell sequence. They need a downsell sequence. They need a book, a call sequence. Your opportunity is not limited. All you need to do is have a tip of the spear, something that you specialize in, and then you start to realize, actually, there's all these sub audiences that I can tap into. Okay? And as you start to build this niche constellation, you realize that niching down is the path to tapping into all these sub audiences. But if you just say, I do everything, nobody can hear you. No one knows what to do with you. No one knows where to put you in their brain. So this is why one of the big things that I stress in our premium ghostwriting academy is you should start by picking a specific service. Pick something that you want to spend two years of your life getting really good at, and then look to apply it to a specific industry. And as you do that, realize your opportunity is not limited. You have all these other sub audiences that you can tap into. Okay, to end this, I want to explain why this is so hard for people. You might think that this is a funnel, but it's not. It's a red solo cup. Okay? So pretend that you have a factory, and the only thing you do is make red plastic solo cups, okay? And one day a little old woman comes in, and she goes, I am looking for a tiny, little, like, marble teacup. I want you to create a specialized china marble teacup. I want it just like my grandma before me had. I want you to make it just for me. You would go, that's not what we do here. We make a million red plastic solo cups a month. How on earth am I supposed to change all of my manufacturing and all of my processes to make this one specific type of cup that you're looking for? You wouldn't adjust everything that you're doing for this person. You would say, I'm sorry, that's not what we do here. I wish you all the best. There's someone down the street who can help you. And yet, this is what writers do. Every single day. A writer goes, I specialize in newsletters. Right? This is your red plastic solo cup. And then someone comes in and goes, actually, I'm looking for Instagram scripts. And what the writer does is they go, oh, you know what? That's great news. I've decided I completely give up on newsletters. I'm gonna do this too. And they instantly shut down their factory and so the skill to build is learning how to say no. Right? You can't end up building dominance in a niche. You can't end up building a roster of clients where you do the same thing over and over and over again. If you're constantly crushing your efficiencies and crushing your pricing power and crushing your profit by saying yes to every single person who walks into your factory, you can't do it. And so, fundamentally, you have to learn the skill and of saying no. Because every time you say no, you're not limiting your opportunity. What you're doing is you're protecting your capacity. You want to protect the capacity that you have and go, no, no, no. Instead of taking on this other client, I'm going to spend three more hours, five more hours, 10 more hours going and getting the right person so that I can keep doing the same thing over and over and over again inside my factory. This is a very hard skill for people to build. And even after someone lands a client, two clients, five clients, ten clients, even after they hit ten grand a month, I have coached so many writers through this problem, and it never goes away. This problem exists at the very beginning. It exists when you hit 10 grand a month. It exists when you hit 20 grand a month. It exists at 100 grand a month. Because every time you take a step forward, and as you get better and better at things, you attract new opportunities. And so you're going to get confronted with, hey, but could you also do this random thing for me? You're going to get confronted with that over and over and over again, which is why you have to have clarity on what you specialize in. And you have to build the skill of saying no, Sam.