Third time’s a charm?
I began my blog almost exactly two years ago! I launched Hayley’s Haberdashery in August 2017 before I started my year abroad in Spain. I was a novice and I used WordPress.com to create my blog. And it worked great for what I needed at the time. But then the limitations set in…
As I began to learn more and more about blogging, I realized I needed to switch over to hosting my site on WordPress.org. So at the beginning of this year, I rashly rebranded everything. I bought a new domain and migrated all of my content and followers over to a new site. I called my blog Hayley Elizabeth with the intention of having it as my author name.
But I didn’t give it as much thought as I should have. I didn’t even google search my own name! And it seriously limited me to being forever known as Hayley Elizabeth. (Which frankly seems to be a trend lately (especially among teachers who don’t want to be found by their nosey students) and I’m not sure I’m up for that.) Anyway, I wanted my brand to be uniquely me. No mix-ups with the other author Elizabeth Hayley (true story) or the million other Hayley Elizabeth’s out there.
So I’ve done it again. (See: third time’s a charm.) I’ve created this new website and blog! Let me tell you, I am so incredibly happy I switched. My new website looks amazing and I’m finally going to have a newsletter service. (Shameless plug, subscribe here.) I was able to migrate all of my content over to this site. So all the same blog posts are still there. But I have no way of migrating my followers. If you have found me here from the old site, thank you! Even if you’re new here, help a girl out and follow my new site either by email or following on WordPress.
Part of the catalyst for this change is that I’m going to be published! Yes, I will have one (maybe two) of my short stories published in an anthology this September! It has been a whirl-wind writing and (now) editing these stories for publication. And I realized something, I want to be known by my full name. I want my work (now and into the future) to be stamped with “by Hayley E. Frerichs.” (Can you guess what the “E.” stands for?) I mean seriously, it’s just super exciting that I am going to be published! Not in the way I expected but my work is going to be out there all the same.
I don’t see all of this as a waste. I think of it more as a trial run. I made so many mistakes when I rebranded and I’ve learned so much about how to blog, grow traffic, and create content. I know there’s an audience out there for me and I can grow my community with confidence now that I have a website that I truly love.
I’m also planning on being more consistent with my posting schedule. I’ve struggled with some serious burn-out the past month and establishing some boundaries is definitely going to help with that. So expect a new blog post every Tuesday and my newsletter every Wednesday morning. It seems so much more manageable already!
Thanks for reading and I hope to see you around!
Happy Day-
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