Michael Hyatt, publisher, blogger–no doubt a very decent person–says bloggers shouldn’t worry about being productive, because it’s overrated. Effective writing is much better, and even if it takes a while, it’s worth more to your audience than frequent, quickly written posts.
“This applies to every aspect of your online presence,” he explains. “For example, it is often tempting to tweet snippets of your life’s happenings, but the result of these outbursts is an undermining of your relevance; followers grow less likely to pay attention to your next tweet, which might be great content.” (HT Jane Friedman)
If a blogger doesn’t make at least a post a day, he starts losing me as an audience.
How many blogs do you read in a day, Nigel?
Well, my system is a little complicated. I have eight comic strips I read on the internet, but half of them are monday-wednesday-friday affairs; this works okay because I sit down and read them all at once, so I know that the ones that will be blank will be blank and I skip them.
I have five web sites that are so active I can count on reading them multiple times a day, and so usually start working through them in the morning sometime, and come back and revisit if I get back on the internet and feel like it.
Blogs proper, then, I have a long list (about 30) that I go to if I’m in the mood (including this fine establishment). When I’m feeling to run down to do anything else (including watch TV) I’ll read through the whole list every day, and that’s when the ones that don’t post daily tend to get weeded out, and new ones get added because I run out of things to read. When I’m feeling better, I just read a sprinkling, or more, depending on the day, possibly just going to my half-dozen or so favorites.
A blog can survive on my list without daily posting, but it has to really offer something special (like John Wright). I’ll not speculate about whether I would come here if you cut back that much, because if I said I would then you might, and then I wouldn’t find as much here to read.
It’s good that you withheld that last thought, because we’re looking for ways to write less while raking in the same amount of cash we currently get off this blog. I tell you, between trips to Osla, Havana, and Honolulu, we can barely find time to write.