Contract bridge is a four-player, dual-team card game. When I first wrote about bridge, most people didn’t get it yet – but this year, seeing a Family Guy skit about bridge, the references certainly appear to be more mainstream. Makes me smile, because writing in this niche for over seven years has held strong for me during some of the hardest times for the publishing industry.
Here’s how to apply to your own writing niche, whether it’s bridge, cooking, strength training, or horror film reviews.
Niche Through Necessity
Writers don’t find their niche at random: it takes time, persistence, and diligence to find those types of markets, but to find writing markets for something you already have a passion for, can make your days so much finer.
Look for your niche, and pitch for it. Continue doing so, even when it doesn’t work for a while. Keep hunting. Keep pitching. After all, you love this niche, right?
’What’s in a Deck?’ was the first card feature I sold in 2016.
Facing hard times, we had just been evicted by guys with firearms instead of a court order. Selling this story was the difference between going forward and going broke.
I sent out approximately 100 pitches in one afternoon, after days of making notes. Bridge was literally the one percent topic that worked. One successful article out of 100 tries.
I continued writing about many other things: survivalism, stalkers, finance. Contract bridge kept coming back, though.
Find your niche in topics you are knowledgeable in. Statistically, you are on better ground if you know a topic, and begin to know more editors.
‘Keep trying’ is absolutely the best writing advice I can offer here.
The Byline Expands
I wasn’t quite a ‘contract bridge writer’ after just one article, though. The trick was to keep writing more.
‘The Cutthroat World of Professional Bridge’ caught the attention of the Canadian Bridge Federation’s official magazine. The CBF republished the article, and my byline expanded further into the bridge world.
In early-2019, I wrote a few bridge articles for the South African Alzheimer’s Research just to keep this topic fresh in my samples.
Somewhere later in 2019, I would be interviewed about bridge on several radio stations. At the time, I was distracted and nervous, but learned to prepare better for live broadcasts.
A niche can’t happen overnight. Sometimes, it’s a little scary, but keep pushing forward.
Industries have highs and lows, and times when the mainstream media will mention it every week or not at all for months. When tags related to your niche are popular in the news, pay attention and ride that wave.
The Daily Bridge Contract
By middle-2019, I was still writing about bridge, but it wasn’t a forefront focus yet.
I approached Bridge Base Online (BBO) with a suggestion: what about a blog? When they agreed, I would write the BBO Prime Daily Column under contract for several years.
COVID-19 meant nothing at the beginning of the writing contract, but by the end, lockdown had destroyed a chunk of my regular freelance publications.
Bridge would flourish during this time.
Because of restrictions, international bridge clubs had to switch online. Most of them were subscribers to the BBO Prime Daily Column, lucky for me.
No kidding: card jobs would now help to pay the bills.
The Game Goes On
I still write about everything, but a little more often about board games and playing cards.
This year has already brought for me posts for Into Bridge website and features for the American Bridge Teachers Magazine.
Somehow, through everything, I’ve stuck to bridge (or it’s stuck to me).
Bio: Alex J. Coyne is a writer, proofreader, and bridge player. Samples and exclusive content can be found at his website.
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