New Year, New Approaches

Happy New Year—a little belatedly, but wishing you the best all the same!

The end of 2012 brought me a slew of assignments, which I managed to complete amid the rush of the holidays (and oh yes, that pesky wedding planning—ha!) As my deadlines passed and my calendar opened up, I started thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2013 and how I want to accomplish it. So, in no particular order, below is my list of professional goals for this year:

·     

•   Get a website up and running

•   Land more copywriting projects for business clients

• Send fewer, but better crafted, query letters to better-paying markets. (Note: I’ve already started doing this, and have been pleased with the responses so far! Where I used to dash off a query the moment an idea came to me, lately I’ve been spending up to a week really brainstorming and fleshing out ideas. I’ve also been incorporating more expert sources into my queries to give them some added credibility. In the past I'd be vague with the types of pros I'd plan to speak with, but I think having some direct quotes from folks in the query itself has really helped).

• Write for more college alumni magazines.  I started doing this at the end of 2012, as well. I sent a number of LOI’s to college relations departments to at least get on a few radar screens. I secured one assignment from a local college I’d contacted in the summer (not worried—these relationships take time to build!)

• Build stronger relationships through social media. I recently re-vamped my LinkedIn profile and started tweeting with a bit more frequency.  I also joined a few new LinkedIn groups and posted some comments which will hopefully increase my visibility, and have started doing more searching on Twitter. I have a personal Facebook page but am also considering starting one strictly for writing to hopefully bring in more business.

How about you? What are you doing differently in 2013?