A niche, four formats, and three pitches sent

The situation

Choose the subject you can write about with real authority, then produce the four pieces a business actually buys — an article, a product description, homepage text, an email — one of them built on a real interview so nobody else could have written it. Publish three portfolio pieces, write your one-paragraph pitch, and send it to three businesses whose content you have genuinely read.

What you'll be able to show

• Pick a wedge subject and prove you own it with three titles only you could write
• Cut, front-load and read aloud until the writing stumbles nowhere
• Write each of the four formats to do its own job
• Publish, pitch and send — three real businesses, three specific messages

What you need

• A document, a place to publish (a free blog, LinkedIn articles, Medium)
• One real business you know for the four pieces
• One person you can interview for ten minutes

Tasks

1. 1The wedge
   Write the subject you can write about with genuine authority and three article titles only you could write well.
   A correct result: A subject and three titles a generalist could not have produced.
2. 2Cut, front-load, read aloud
   Take something you wrote before. Cut it by 25% without losing meaning. Rewrite the opening so the main point is the first sentence. Read it aloud and fix every stumble. Keep both versions.
   A correct result: Before and after, with the word counts, and a note of the stumbles fixed.
3. 3Four formats for one business
   For a real business: a 600-word article answering a genuine customer question, one product description, the homepage's above-the-fold text (what it is, who for, what next), and one email subject plus a four-line body. Check each against its job.
   A correct result: Four pieces, each with a one-line note on the job it does.
4. 4The interview piece
   Write a 700-word piece on a subject where you interview one real person for ten minutes. Use an AI tool only for the outline and a light edit. Mark in a second document exactly which specifics came from the interview.
   A correct result: The piece, and the marked-up copy showing the interview-sourced lines.
5. 5Publish and pitch
   Publish three portfolio pieces in your niche somewhere linkable. Write your one-paragraph pitch — who you write for, what you write, the link. Send it to three businesses whose content you have read, each with a specific observation about their content.
   A correct result: Three live links, the pitch, and three sent messages each containing a specific observation.
6. 6The twelve-month plan
   One page: subject specialism, one format specialism, one adjacent skill (SEO is the usual answer), publishing rhythm, and three measurable client results you intend to show in twelve months.
   A correct result: A one-page plan with three measurable outcomes.

What to hand in

The wedge and titles, the before/after edit, the four pieces, the interview piece with its markup, the three live links and three sent pitches, and the plan.

How it is marked