The end of June marked the end of Q2 of writing this blog, which I officially launched in January to keep track of changes in the freelance writing and online news business. In the past three months, WordCount hit some major milestones. Here are a few:
Best month ever – When I decided to write a post a day during the month of May I thought it’d be a fun way to celebrate my birthday, which falls during that month. Little did I know my blogathon would make May my biggest month ever for unique visits, more than 3,000. It also helped me expand my circle of freelance acquaintances, which led to a couple posts about interesting things other freelancers are doing on their blogs, such as Jane Boursaw, who blogs at Reel Life with Jane. I also did my first stint guest blogging, writing Making life work as a writer and mom, for Susan Johnston’s Urban Muse blog.
Recognition – WordCount is getting more exposure. During the last quarter, I was interviewed by Paula Berinstein, producer of The Writing Show podcast, about a post I did on writing short. When I interviewed Paul Brusso for an IncTechnology.com story on how small businesses can create a podcast, he taped the interview and turned it into a podcast. Earlier this week, I announced that I’d sold the rights to a WordCount post about conducting tough interviews. The essay will be included in The New Writer’s Handbook 2008, an anthology set to be published in August.
Growing numbers – Visits to and comments on WordCount continue to rise. Unfortunately the same holds for spam. Since the beginning of the year, WordCount has received more than 10,400 unique visits and 216 comments. Still pretty low numbers by some estimations, but it’s enough to boost my Technorati authority to 61 and put the blog eighth in Google searches of the phrase “Word Count.” The site’s also attracted more than 1,600 spam comments – thank goodness for Askimet for catching the vast majority of them.
Indirect revenue – The amount of money I’ve made directly from my blog is still tiny. But the research I’ve done on podcasts, social networks like LinkedIn and other Web 2.0 topics and tools for posts for this blog led me to successfully pitch stories on those subjects to several magazines and Websites. Total revenue from those stories: close to $2,000.
During the last quarter I also reached my 100th blog post milestone, reorganized my blogroll, updated my clips page and settled into a Monday through Friday blogging schedule.
Thanks for being part of the WordCount experience – happy reading!
