Genealogy, inspired!

Holy moly, where does the time go?!

How has it already been a whole year since I launched this long thought about venture?!

Well, no matter how time warps and days turn into years, here we are, and I am just so darn happy to be able to share my passion for all things family history in this space and to have been met by such an intimate and supportive community.

To mark the occasion of my very first Blogiversary here on bold+queer I thought I’d go through a few stats and then offer up a celebratory GIVEAWAY!

Sound good?

Good!

First Up, Stats!

While lofty ambitions of posting once a week proved to be a bit too ambitious in this Busy Season of my life, I did manage to write a total of 40 posts over the past year. I’m pretty proud of that number and am so glad readers are finding their way to this space and sticking around for a bit!

So, of those 40 posts, which are my most visited? In order of popularity, they are as follows:

From this list it looks like DNA Testing and Tips garner the most interest, which makes sense :-)

Although, I have to say that my Tea Time/Over a Cuppa posts do quite well and my new dive in Creative Heritage Journaling has garnered a lot of interest as well.

I also want to note that I was very happy to see that some of the SEO work I’ve been doing (while grueling for this Gen Xer) has paid off with nearly 70% of my visitors coming from direct searches!

The remaining 30% of visitors are a combo of referrals from other websites (mainly during the Over a Cuppa blog shares hosted by Natalie the Explorer when I participate) and direct clicks from my Bold and Queer Instagram account (the only social media platform I use for this site/business and a small community I’m so grateful to be a part of).

Next, Let’s Talk Shop

When I decided to launch this site, I knew from the very beginning that an income stream would be an important part of the whole package. I also knew that learning all the ins and outs of print-on-demand sales would be quite the learning curve, and indeed it was.

Once I got it all down though, it’s been a load of fun to play with!

Since launching with my original six designs I’ve added another six to bring my catalog up to 12 with each design featured as both a shirt and a mug with in a variety of colors and sizes!

Remarkably, the most popular items have been:

While I’m still in the red at the end of each month on this venture, I know that things like this take time, trust the process, am so very excited and grateful for every sale, and love seeing all the positive feedback from customers!

Now, Let’s CELEBRATE!

In celebration of the First Anniversary of bold+queer, I’m holding a GIVEAWAY here and on my Instagram account to Win a T-Shirt or Mug from the Shop!⁠

Entry is SUPER simple and you can have multiple entries for multiple opportunities to win. Each point below counts as a separate entry:

1) Leave a comment on this post sharing which of your Ancestors you’d love to share a cuppa with and why if you could fold time!

2) Sign up for my Seasonal Newsletter using the form below.

More entries can be submitted by visiting my Instagram account and following the steps in the post matching the below graphic.

Giveaway closes at midnight MST on March 12th. The winner will be selected using a random number generator from the comments on this post and on Instagram on March 13th!