This is a long post as we have a lot to celebrate, so sit back with a coffee. It’s quite affirming really to see the progress and positivity in our Grow Your Writing Business community.

During September at Grow Your Writing Business, we’ve been celebrating successes - big and small. Readers have shared their marvellous mini milestones and super successes with us at the Weekend Writers Cafe, in comments and by email.

Let’s celebrate our combined successes with a roundup today and tomorrow to top off a great month in September. While I loved
reading about the successes, I’ve had to distil the essence of them, rather than copy the whole text you may have sent me. If I keep it brief, I can fit everyone in. If you sent me news of your successes, and I haven’t included you, please let me know, and I’ll update this.

Podcasting Takes Over The Writing & Blogging World

Birney Summers blogs at Energy Boomer, is a fellow Blog Mastermind member. He was interviewed for a podcast on the Green Option blog, and has been getting a great response to his blog. You can listen to the 10 minute podcast.

Podcasts were all the buzz at last week’s Grow Your Writing Business Writers Cafe. Suzanne
Wells, the Ebay Selling Coach, gave us tips, and Joanna celebrated her very first podcast. Karen did her first podcast at Scraps of Mind, and says “I was pretty pleased with myself to have taken the Audacity learning curve solo and produced and edited the podcast by myself.” We’re all inspired, and won’t be far behind.

Virtual Book Tours - Leveraging the Web

Suspense author, Cheryl Kay Tardiff stopped by Mary Emma Allen’s guest post here on Virtual Blog Tours - The Latest Innovation For Promoting Your Writing, and Glenda Watson Hyatt’s amazingVirtual Book Tour Grand Finale, which I hosted. Cheryl had a successful 25 stop month long virtual world book tour herself. Her book, Whale Song made Amazon’s Bestsellers list for Canadian World Fiction. She has written an informative article about Virtual Book Tours for anyone looking for more information.

Marvellous Writing & Blogging Milestones

Miranda Marquit at Work Shak told me that September “marked the first I have actually had to turn away work! I am now successful enough that I have had to learn the word “No! It also means, of course, that I can now be more picky about gigs and that I can ask for what I’m worth on every project, rather than take whatever someone will give me.” Karen Lynch at celebrating one year of blogging at Live The Power. Way to go Miranda and Karen!

Super Writing & Blogging Successes

Lillie Ammann’s romantic suspense novel, “Dream or Destiny” is ready to be sent to the book designer. Blog wise, Lillie and I were wondering whether 25 000 spam comments should be celebrated as some sort of significant milestone in a blog’s life, Joanna Young announced her own milestone - 100 RSS subscribers. If you haven’t visited Confident Writing yet, head over there now. I’m sure it won’t be long before the very talented Joanna has more milestones to announce.

Urban Monk is celebrating 500 RSS subscribers since he started his blog in April. He attributes this to a combination of content, blog carnivals, and StumbleUpon. Woo hoo! Congratulations Albert.

Carol Webb from Wise Healer wrote a great entry for the Shared Answers Group Writing Project which Laura and I co-hosted. She said she has learned so much about the art of blogging, social networking and “how to change academic looking essays into tigh sub-headed easily read posts.” As she says, there is “no substitute for excellent writing”. Her traffic is increasing. Her colleague, Michelle Van, another Blog Masterminder, and owner of Live Holistically was the winner of the Shared Answers Contest. She says that “Just the fact that I’m writing everyday is a huge milestone for me!” That truly is a major feat in itself, as I’m sure all of us will agree. Michelle has just started a new blog, Shoestring Startup, her fourth blog.

Princess wrote ‘I find success in the fact that I am not intimidated to blog anymore and share special moments in my life with the world. I also feel successful everytime I post pictures and links with my entries without any hassle. Although I can only visit very few bloggers, I deem it one of my successes that they all inspire me to go on and have fun with blogging. Thanks, Yvonne, for encouraging me always!!!” That is priceless. I feel so honored, Princess that you are a regular visitor here.

Growth As Success

Laura Spencer at Writing Thoughts is a great writer and an active supporter of Grow Your Writing Business. Not too long ago she started Opinion Mom and a paid blogging gig at Work From Home Momma for Know More Media. We’re all learning, and Laura says she is quite proud of the fact that she is mastering her imaging program. I am biased, given the Grow topic of my blog, but I love her graphic (a plant growing), on Work At Home Moms: Are You Prepared For Your Business To Grow? - perfect for what we’re talking about here too… growth, nurturing and success.

Connecting With Others

Toni Tiu of Wifely Steps sums up the sense of connectivity I feel through blogs and blogging, when she tells of her blogging journey from starting Wifely Steps as a personal blog in 2001, to winning to winning the “Best Home & Living Blog Award” at the Philippine Blog Awards. She says,

“That was a great achievement! I’m still ecstatic. I was so happy my blog connected with so many people and that I was doing good in my “mission” to help others. This win led to a writing gig for Inquirer.net, the online version of one of the Philippines’ top newspapers. I now write the Happy Nest blog on positivity for them every week. My love for writing is beginning to reach more and more people. These are the milestones of my 6 years in blogging. It started with a love for writing, a joy in connecting and helping others. So yes, let’s celebrate.” Beautifully said, Toni.

Congratulations & Thanks To All

Congratulations to all and thanks for sharing your successes. Success comes in many forms. It’s inspiring. I think we could do a success roundup on a regular basis. Be sure to share your marvellous mini milestones and super successes in the comments thread at the Weekend Writers Cafe - open every weekend, Friday to Sunday. What do you think?

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