Welcome to 2013
Jan. 5th, 2013 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nicpelI'm late with posting any kind of year-end wrap up - actually late to updating this blog at all for the past few months. To say it's been busy is an understatement. I won't bore with too many details, just try to hit on some of the major things...
In October I spent two weeks in Venice and the surrounding area, a topic I've been writing about in numerous Squidoo articles (including my one on Torcello which was selected as a Lens of the Day) and also in my food blog (under the Venice 2012 tag.) Of course, by the time I was getting exhausted writing about Italy and travel, I had to head deep into holiday promotions and updates for my various Christmas lenses and gift guides.
The work did pay off as I'm expecting a pretty good payout from affiliate sales over the next two months, and I ended up in December with my highest Squidoo payout ever to date: just a little under $500! I finished the year with 198 lenses published, meaning I'd completed actually exactly 100 new lenses in 2012. That's a lot of writing! I had two writing goals for 2012: one was to get to 200 lenses by the end of the year, which I just missed, and the other was to be regularly earning over $200/month from on-line content publishing. Well, I made that payout goal by August, so altogether I consider 2012 a successful year.
What are my writing goals for 2013?
1. I'd like to make it to over 250 Squidoo lenses so I can apply for "Colossal Squid" status. At that point, I think it's going to be major work just keeping my existing lenses regularly updated (at least the ones that perform well enough to deserve it) so I do plan on slowing down my Squidoo lens creation and try to branch out to a few other sites.
2. I really need to work on my Zujava portfolio, including getting back to finishing/publishing those author/artist/musician profiles I'd done initial Q&A's for back in the fall.
3. Keep up the work on my food blog by posting at least once a week there, if not more regularly. I just updated the theme/layout in a way that I find much more visually appealing...now to hopefully finally make it to some ad revenue payouts this year...
4. Consider either starting another for-profit blog on a niche topic, or perhaps go back to occasionally writing articles for Yahoo. Although I haven't published there in almost 2 years now, I still get a nice little payout every month from those old articles, and Y!CN in general seems to be doing better in Google's eyes lately than it was when I stopped publishing there. Since some current events-type writing has more potential on a site like than vs. Squidoo, I might start dabbling in the waters there again. (I'm just going to avoid the snark-filled/aggravating community there like the plague).
5. I'd like to be earning a steady $500/month from on-line content by the end of 2013. I know I almost made that goal last month, but given that was thanks to a lot of holiday traffic (and sales) boosts, I know it's going to take some work to meet that target even during "slump months."
What are your writing goals for the year ahead? Did you make your goals for 2012?
In October I spent two weeks in Venice and the surrounding area, a topic I've been writing about in numerous Squidoo articles (including my one on Torcello which was selected as a Lens of the Day) and also in my food blog (under the Venice 2012 tag.) Of course, by the time I was getting exhausted writing about Italy and travel, I had to head deep into holiday promotions and updates for my various Christmas lenses and gift guides.
The work did pay off as I'm expecting a pretty good payout from affiliate sales over the next two months, and I ended up in December with my highest Squidoo payout ever to date: just a little under $500! I finished the year with 198 lenses published, meaning I'd completed actually exactly 100 new lenses in 2012. That's a lot of writing! I had two writing goals for 2012: one was to get to 200 lenses by the end of the year, which I just missed, and the other was to be regularly earning over $200/month from on-line content publishing. Well, I made that payout goal by August, so altogether I consider 2012 a successful year.
What are my writing goals for 2013?
1. I'd like to make it to over 250 Squidoo lenses so I can apply for "Colossal Squid" status. At that point, I think it's going to be major work just keeping my existing lenses regularly updated (at least the ones that perform well enough to deserve it) so I do plan on slowing down my Squidoo lens creation and try to branch out to a few other sites.
2. I really need to work on my Zujava portfolio, including getting back to finishing/publishing those author/artist/musician profiles I'd done initial Q&A's for back in the fall.
3. Keep up the work on my food blog by posting at least once a week there, if not more regularly. I just updated the theme/layout in a way that I find much more visually appealing...now to hopefully finally make it to some ad revenue payouts this year...
4. Consider either starting another for-profit blog on a niche topic, or perhaps go back to occasionally writing articles for Yahoo. Although I haven't published there in almost 2 years now, I still get a nice little payout every month from those old articles, and Y!CN in general seems to be doing better in Google's eyes lately than it was when I stopped publishing there. Since some current events-type writing has more potential on a site like than vs. Squidoo, I might start dabbling in the waters there again. (I'm just going to avoid the snark-filled/aggravating community there like the plague).
5. I'd like to be earning a steady $500/month from on-line content by the end of 2013. I know I almost made that goal last month, but given that was thanks to a lot of holiday traffic (and sales) boosts, I know it's going to take some work to meet that target even during "slump months."
What are your writing goals for the year ahead? Did you make your goals for 2012?
