I enjoy blogging. I enjoy both the writing side of blogging as well as the reading and interacting side of blogging. I personally think it is more pleasureable to read a blog that has a steady stream of information rather than bursts of quantity followed by silence. I believe that is one aspect of Instapundit that makes Glen Reynolds (and his rumored ghost writers) stand out. Like dead air on the radio, several days or weeks of no posts can cost your blog readership.
I collect links and tidbits as I work. When I’m researching and see something interesting I open a tab in Firefox and hold the link. My goal, of course, is to write something substantial and correlate to other sources and similar tidbits but rather than Pulitzer I often end up with a couple of sentences saying, "check this out!" I also have friends that instant message or email interesting links which go into the pool of possible publishings. And my browser homepage for Firefox is the Geek Crack site http://popurls.com/ while Internet Explorer retains the news portal iWon.
My trick to steady posting is to devote a bit of time each Sunday to making non-time sensitive posts into the future. This was a feature that Blogger lacked. On blogger, posting in the future made the information immediately available but with a future date. As you can see in the picture, WordPress handles future posts correctly! The screenshot shows my recent posts today but also reveals seven scheduled posts already written which will appear whether or not I’m frantically working, or even away from my computer. The next one arrives in 16 hours then another in 20 hours, three post in 2 days, and finally two posts 4 days from now. These non-time sensitive posts come from the links I’ve collected over the week. The scheduled posts may only be a couple of sentences but if time permits over the week, I can improve the information before their scheduled time (and being what a blog is, I can update them at any time but my style is typically to leave a post alone once it publishes).
By using scheduling features of your blog publishing software, you can have posts appear while you are at the office of a business that has a policy against blogging at work. You can keep your readers satisfied with a steady stream of good writing. By spreading your material out over time, you avoid turning your readers into skimmers because of information overload. Write steady!
Update: Swap Blog also offers bloggers some good advice.
Good post. I’m on blogger and I have a heck of a time utilizing its limited tools.
I really like the options of Moveable Type but I don’t know that much about it.
I must say, learning is sometimes the best part.
Excellent point and post. Thanks for commenting on our post as well.
Like you we collect links during the day, some develop into posts, some do not. Some work there way in a few days later, others go up as soon as they are done. We too use Word Press and go through cycles of future posting. Most of our Sunday AM stuff is future posted – Saturday night – where it will come up as others are getting ready for or heading to church. With the exception of that stuff though we are future posting less and less. Future posting is one feature that makes WordPress very useable and useful though. The Akismet spam blocker is great as well.
Stay strong, be couragous, blog often (regularly) and serve God in all things.
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