Measuring Success for Freelance Writing

Each morning starts with a quick look at my statistics for Successful Freelance Writer (and all of my other sites). I look to see which articles are getting the most views and how readers are getting to my site. Today I found a new website – two actually.

Get in the Hot Spot is a site about living life and enjoying it. She shares travel stories and lifestyle tips. Annabel Candy writes from Australia and pursues the dream that many of us venturing into freelance writing have for our own lives.

Annabel did write about writing (it seems that many of us end up doing that – a way to push through our own barriers maybe) on the website. Change came to Get in the Hot Spot and Annabel created a new site called Successful Blogging. Her posts there are all about building a better blog.

Things I Learned from Annabel Candy

1. I am NOT Annabel Candy.

These sites are up there with the big guns. She has thousands of readers and her readers leave comments – a lot of them. It left me wondering if my path to be a successful freelance writer had someone taken a really bad turn. I started to compare journeys to determine where mine had gone wrong. It dawned on me that I am not her and she is not me. We are on parallel journeys – both growing as writers – but they are not the same. I have to be persistent and consistent in MY journey and continue to learn and grow from those that are journeying around me.

2. People will find me.

I may have been to Get in the Hot Spot before or maybe I visited Successful Blogging. I have no memory of the visit and I think I would remember her sites (and visit more often). It is always an encouraging experience to be around people that enjoy life – even if that visit is only through the internet. Someone came from her site to my site according to my statistics. I may never understand completely HOW they find me, but people are finding me.

3. Passion makes a difference.

Her blogs started not because she wanted to make thousands of dollars. She wrote what she was experiencing and hoping and dreaming. People respond more to that than to just about anything else in the world. I have to continue to share my own joy and hope and dreams so that you know you are not alone and so that maybe, just maybe, you can learn from my own journey and make yours a little easier.

I ran track in high school and one of the things I remember is that you had to stay focused on your own run. Looking to the left or to the right to see what others were doing could leave you drifting into their lanes.

Focused persistence gets me the prize. I have to do the things that I know to do – I have to write, share, and continue to reach other to readers and other writers. My journey will be unique and it will be the only way for ME to reach the level of freelance writing success that I desire.

Share your tips for keeping focused on your own lane. It would be great to find even more ideas for growing into a stronger freelance writer.