For a while there, I really didn't think I was going to meet my goal of growing my Facebook page to 500 likes by my birthday. I was feeling a bit disheartened and lamenting the fact that I ever set such a goal.
But, you all came through for me! So many of you shared my page and encouraged your friends to hit the like button that the page hit 500 just before midnight and was up to 504 by time I got online on my birthday.
THANK YOU!
I am thrilled to have reached 500 page likes and to have so many people interested in following my work.
Facebook is still, by far, where the majority of traffic to my published pieces originates. So, it is important to me to maintain and grow that page.
Unfortunately, Facebook makes it terribly difficult to get me work seen, even by those who have chosen to like and follow my page. They want me to pay to "boost" my posts before they will show them to all of the page's followers. Without paying real money, even a post with a good amount of interaction is only seen by a fraction of the people who follow the page.
It is beyond frustrating.
Which brings me to my latest endeavor, my mailing list. I am truly excited about putting this together, even though I know it will be even harder to get people to sign up their email than it is to get them to like a Facebook page. But, I am hopeful because if they do, it means all of my links will be delivered, once every few months, directly to the people who are interested in seeing them, without any algorithms standing in the way.
This week, I published "Every Personal Essay I’ve Ever Written is Another Bullet Point on a “Random Things About Me” Listicle: Exploring 38 Personal Essay Topics on My 38th Birthday." It ended up being the perfect post to introduce myself, and the topics I write about, to all the new page followers – even my mom said she learned some new things about me!
I made a new Instagram image about how I am proud to be aging, too.
InspireMore syndicated my piece about being a cancer survivor, just in time for my official remission anniversary – 13 years!
I also saw that my piece about writing with anxiety that was syndicated on The Mighty last week, was also picked up by Yahoo! Lifestyle.
A couple weeks ago I mentioned sending out several queries, including one to a publication I had not yet worked with; I am happy to report I received an acceptance for that one and will be working with another publication come April!
And I finished a new poem last night. I started it weeks ago and finally found the right words. I may try querying it for publication in the coming week.
27 February 2019
20 February 2019
#WIPWednesday
I'm starting a quarterly newsletter!
I've had a mailing list sign-up for nearly a year but I've never promoted it because I've never had plans to send any mailings. After realizing how little control I have over who actually sees my posts on social media (500 people have chosen to follow my page yet my pinned post on Facebook has been seen by less than 200 people), I decided it is time to start utilizing my mailing list.
I signed-up for a free account on MailChimp and began designing the forms and templates to start a quarterly newsletter. I don't want to spam anyone, but I do want to know that those who have an interest in my work – and have chosen to support me – are not missing anything. Social media just can't be relied on to reach the right people, or enough people.
Though building a mailing list is no easy task. As I just said a couple weeks ago, it is even harder to get people to hand over their email address than it is to get them to like a Facebook page. Speaking of which, I have just 4 days left in my goal to reach 500 page likes for my birthday and I still need 10 more. I don't want to keep begging so, at this point, I just have my fingers crossed that a few new people will find their way to my page soon.
Working on designing the templates for the newsletter and trying to promote and build the mailing list consumed much of my time this week, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am really looking forward to the first mailing in March.
The only new writing I accomplished this week was done before I started working on the mailing list / newsletter project, when I made the most of another rough night of anxiety by writing a new poem and submitting it to a poetry journal for consideration.
My latest piece has been performing well, though! It broke 100 fans and 1.1K claps on P.S. I Love You, making it my best performing piece on Medium, so far. And its syndications were featured in The Good Men Project's newsletter and shared on the InspireMore's Facebook and Twitter pages.
A couple of my other essays were making the rounds, this week, too. One was featured in the InspireMore newsletter on Valentine's Day and another was featured on The Mighty's main Facebook page on Monday.
The Mighty also republished my piece about writing with anxiety yesterday.
Despite having written very little, I felt like I experienced a growth spurt as a writer this week; I'm feeling invigorated about what is to come!
I've had a mailing list sign-up for nearly a year but I've never promoted it because I've never had plans to send any mailings. After realizing how little control I have over who actually sees my posts on social media (500 people have chosen to follow my page yet my pinned post on Facebook has been seen by less than 200 people), I decided it is time to start utilizing my mailing list.
I signed-up for a free account on MailChimp and began designing the forms and templates to start a quarterly newsletter. I don't want to spam anyone, but I do want to know that those who have an interest in my work – and have chosen to support me – are not missing anything. Social media just can't be relied on to reach the right people, or enough people.
Though building a mailing list is no easy task. As I just said a couple weeks ago, it is even harder to get people to hand over their email address than it is to get them to like a Facebook page. Speaking of which, I have just 4 days left in my goal to reach 500 page likes for my birthday and I still need 10 more. I don't want to keep begging so, at this point, I just have my fingers crossed that a few new people will find their way to my page soon.
Working on designing the templates for the newsletter and trying to promote and build the mailing list consumed much of my time this week, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am really looking forward to the first mailing in March.
The only new writing I accomplished this week was done before I started working on the mailing list / newsletter project, when I made the most of another rough night of anxiety by writing a new poem and submitting it to a poetry journal for consideration.
My latest piece has been performing well, though! It broke 100 fans and 1.1K claps on P.S. I Love You, making it my best performing piece on Medium, so far. And its syndications were featured in The Good Men Project's newsletter and shared on the InspireMore's Facebook and Twitter pages.
A couple of my other essays were making the rounds, this week, too. One was featured in the InspireMore newsletter on Valentine's Day and another was featured on The Mighty's main Facebook page on Monday.
The Mighty also republished my piece about writing with anxiety yesterday.
Despite having written very little, I felt like I experienced a growth spurt as a writer this week; I'm feeling invigorated about what is to come!
13 February 2019
#WIPWednesday
Really feeling the love this week! I put out a request on my Facebook page asking for help in reaching my goal of 500 likes by my birthday and received so much support and such thoughtful comments! I am still a few short of my goal but knowing that those who are following my page are genuinely rooting for me is worth more than any number. Besides, it is not my birthday yet, I might still make it.
It was the perfect time for me to get such uplifting encouragement, too, since I also received quite a few rejections this week – three pieces were rejected for syndication by different sites and I received one more rejection on my children's book manuscript.
I just keep plugging along, though. I sent out one new query for my children's book and I submitted five new syndication queries, including one with a site I have not yet worked with.
I found that my last piece syndicated on The Mighty had been picked up by Yahoo! Lifestyle, which is a large audience. The Mighty shared the piece on one of their Facebook pages this week, as well.
I also wrote a new 600 word personal essay and pitched it to P.S. I Love You in a bid to be accepted as a contributor there. I was thrilled to have the piece published and curated by Medium on the Relationships page. The piece has already been picked up for syndication by The Good Men Project, TODAY Parents, and InspireMore.
InspireMore also syndicated one other piece of mine this week.
I made a couple more images this week –like the one for today's Facebook post, which I made after seeing a meme being shared with a typo and without attribution.
And I started drafting a fun introspective piece for my birthday. It is turning out a bit long (and link intensive) but this one can be whatever it is, since it will only be self-published.
It was the perfect time for me to get such uplifting encouragement, too, since I also received quite a few rejections this week – three pieces were rejected for syndication by different sites and I received one more rejection on my children's book manuscript.
I just keep plugging along, though. I sent out one new query for my children's book and I submitted five new syndication queries, including one with a site I have not yet worked with.
I found that my last piece syndicated on The Mighty had been picked up by Yahoo! Lifestyle, which is a large audience. The Mighty shared the piece on one of their Facebook pages this week, as well.
I also wrote a new 600 word personal essay and pitched it to P.S. I Love You in a bid to be accepted as a contributor there. I was thrilled to have the piece published and curated by Medium on the Relationships page. The piece has already been picked up for syndication by The Good Men Project, TODAY Parents, and InspireMore.
InspireMore also syndicated one other piece of mine this week.
I made a couple more images this week –like the one for today's Facebook post, which I made after seeing a meme being shared with a typo and without attribution.
And I started drafting a fun introspective piece for my birthday. It is turning out a bit long (and link intensive) but this one can be whatever it is, since it will only be self-published.
06 February 2019
#WIPWednesday
If you've been following along with my writing for more than a hot minute, you know I have no idea what I am doing.
I know I am doing it all wrong according to the experts (all of them) but I just can't bring myself to follow their stratagems – it just isn't me.
First of all, I refuse to pick a niche, which is pretty much mortal sin number one. I recognize I would be able to build a following much easier if I wrote and posted on my social media accounts only within one niche. But I am not only a mom – not only a boy mom, not only a girl mom, not only a twin mom, not only a mom via IVF/FET, not only a mom thanks to gestational surrogacy. I am not only a cancer survivor. I am not only struggling with anxiety disorders and advocating for mental health awareness. I am not only a budget traveler. Not only a family historian. Not only striving to live an intentionally simple, ordinary life. I am not only a writer – not only a poet, not only an essayist, not only an aspiring novelist.
You get all of me.
I may be doing it wrong by not trimming away all the extra parts so I can squeeze myself into the box of a niche – it may be confusing – but that's real, that's true, that's life, and that is me. I would no more want to focus on and share only one aspect of my life than I would want to quit writing altogether.
And I most certainly do not want to try to manage several pages, one for each niche.
So, I just keep doing my own thing – writing about all the topics, posting on social media related to all the themes, bringing the eclectic patchwork quilt of my life out to share.
And I just keep hoping that other people out there will read something I wrote and make their way over to join me by hitting those follow buttons.
Social media was my weakness to start – and I haven't gotten much stronger over the past year.
Part of me really wants to build a following and part of me wants to just not pay any attention to that number.
The experts have strategies for building followers, as well, which I also can't bring myself to do. I hate feeling like I am begging for page likes. I want organic growth and followers who are genuinely interested in what I am writing and sharing. I can't get behind the like-for-like threads and other means of blindly boosting numbers.
And, to be honest, it doesn't make sense to do so. Sure, it might look great to have thousands of followers but if even half of them are not truly interested in the content and Facebook's algorithms are only showing my posts to a quarter of them, it seems like I have set myself up to have most of my posts die a quick death for lack of interaction.
I wish there was another way to reach my audience, besides social media. Well, there is, a mailing list, but it is even harder to get people to hand over their email address than it is to get them to click the follow button.
So, I do want to try to retain my social media followers and, hopefully, gain more.
I set a goal to try to reach 500 likes on my Facebook page by my birthday, which is now only two and a half weeks away. In an effort to reach that goal, I have been hitting all the buttons Facebook presents to invite people to like the page. I am not sure if I want to do much more than that, so I may not reach my goal. The page currently sits at 452 likes.
I also noticed that every Wednesday I seemed to have one or two unfollows on Facebook. It could've been coincidence, but it seemed to me that my #WIPWednesday posts (at least the ones with my novel word count screenshot) were not well received in people's Facebook feeds.
Hence, today's Facebook post was a little different – a generally relatable meme with a link to the blog post. I will probably only share the screenshot of the word count when I hit milestones, but I am going to continue writing these weekly posts. These posts honestly do keep me motivated and help me to recognize how much I have accomplished. By default, I tend to notice only where I am falling short, which quickly becomes disheartening. Drafting these posts each week forces me to take note that even on the weeks I fall short on word count goals or receive multiple rejections, I still have made progress, I still put in effort, and I have still accomplished things.
Speaking of which, this is the #WIPWednesday post for this week, so here is what I have been up to since last post.
I was thrilled to learn that each of my three kids had a piece accepted to be published in the anthology I mentioned last week. They are so excited! A couple of edits were suggested and I helped them with getting those submitted / ready to submit.
I submitted a fun little piece for another SNAPSHOTS challenge.
The Mighty finally published the piece they accepted for syndication weeks ago, but it has not been featured.
InspireMore did feature my last piece on their Facebook and Twitter pages. I also submitted another for them to consider for syndication. And I sent in a couple syndication queries elsewhere, as well.
I (unintentionally) had a fitting post to share on #WorldReadAloudDay. And I worked on some new images for Instagram.
I also learned that That's Inappropriate is re-branding its contributor platform as Filter Free Parents. So, I worked on getting those links updated. I love the new name and look; I am hoping to have something published there again one day.
And I wrote some poetry this week, which is, as of yet, unpublished.
I know I am doing it all wrong according to the experts (all of them) but I just can't bring myself to follow their stratagems – it just isn't me.
First of all, I refuse to pick a niche, which is pretty much mortal sin number one. I recognize I would be able to build a following much easier if I wrote and posted on my social media accounts only within one niche. But I am not only a mom – not only a boy mom, not only a girl mom, not only a twin mom, not only a mom via IVF/FET, not only a mom thanks to gestational surrogacy. I am not only a cancer survivor. I am not only struggling with anxiety disorders and advocating for mental health awareness. I am not only a budget traveler. Not only a family historian. Not only striving to live an intentionally simple, ordinary life. I am not only a writer – not only a poet, not only an essayist, not only an aspiring novelist.
You get all of me.
I may be doing it wrong by not trimming away all the extra parts so I can squeeze myself into the box of a niche – it may be confusing – but that's real, that's true, that's life, and that is me. I would no more want to focus on and share only one aspect of my life than I would want to quit writing altogether.
And I most certainly do not want to try to manage several pages, one for each niche.
So, I just keep doing my own thing – writing about all the topics, posting on social media related to all the themes, bringing the eclectic patchwork quilt of my life out to share.
And I just keep hoping that other people out there will read something I wrote and make their way over to join me by hitting those follow buttons.
Social media was my weakness to start – and I haven't gotten much stronger over the past year.
Part of me really wants to build a following and part of me wants to just not pay any attention to that number.
The experts have strategies for building followers, as well, which I also can't bring myself to do. I hate feeling like I am begging for page likes. I want organic growth and followers who are genuinely interested in what I am writing and sharing. I can't get behind the like-for-like threads and other means of blindly boosting numbers.
And, to be honest, it doesn't make sense to do so. Sure, it might look great to have thousands of followers but if even half of them are not truly interested in the content and Facebook's algorithms are only showing my posts to a quarter of them, it seems like I have set myself up to have most of my posts die a quick death for lack of interaction.
I wish there was another way to reach my audience, besides social media. Well, there is, a mailing list, but it is even harder to get people to hand over their email address than it is to get them to click the follow button.
So, I do want to try to retain my social media followers and, hopefully, gain more.
I set a goal to try to reach 500 likes on my Facebook page by my birthday, which is now only two and a half weeks away. In an effort to reach that goal, I have been hitting all the buttons Facebook presents to invite people to like the page. I am not sure if I want to do much more than that, so I may not reach my goal. The page currently sits at 452 likes.
I also noticed that every Wednesday I seemed to have one or two unfollows on Facebook. It could've been coincidence, but it seemed to me that my #WIPWednesday posts (at least the ones with my novel word count screenshot) were not well received in people's Facebook feeds.
Hence, today's Facebook post was a little different – a generally relatable meme with a link to the blog post. I will probably only share the screenshot of the word count when I hit milestones, but I am going to continue writing these weekly posts. These posts honestly do keep me motivated and help me to recognize how much I have accomplished. By default, I tend to notice only where I am falling short, which quickly becomes disheartening. Drafting these posts each week forces me to take note that even on the weeks I fall short on word count goals or receive multiple rejections, I still have made progress, I still put in effort, and I have still accomplished things.
Speaking of which, this is the #WIPWednesday post for this week, so here is what I have been up to since last post.
I was thrilled to learn that each of my three kids had a piece accepted to be published in the anthology I mentioned last week. They are so excited! A couple of edits were suggested and I helped them with getting those submitted / ready to submit.
I submitted a fun little piece for another SNAPSHOTS challenge.
The Mighty finally published the piece they accepted for syndication weeks ago, but it has not been featured.
InspireMore did feature my last piece on their Facebook and Twitter pages. I also submitted another for them to consider for syndication. And I sent in a couple syndication queries elsewhere, as well.
I (unintentionally) had a fitting post to share on #WorldReadAloudDay. And I worked on some new images for Instagram.
I also learned that That's Inappropriate is re-branding its contributor platform as Filter Free Parents. So, I worked on getting those links updated. I love the new name and look; I am hoping to have something published there again one day.
And I wrote some poetry this week, which is, as of yet, unpublished.