KOP: How Often Should You Blog?

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So by now you have set up most of the basics to create your platform. All you need now is to put something out there and get people to read it! 

So today's blog post is on a rather controversial topic: how often should you post on your blog? 

(no, I didn't realise this was controversial either until quite recently.)

Method 1: The More The Better

When I first started blogging, I read that you need to post regularly, at least 4 times a week. The logic for this was pretty sound:

1. You want to build up a strong archive of good posts so that when people come to visit, they have something to actually read.

2. The more posts = the more ways people can find you through search engines.

3. If you don't keep updating your content, there is no reason for someone to keep visiting.

4. If someone subscribes, then the more often you post, the more often you will pop up in their inbox, and the more they will remember you.

For example, Susan Gunelius on About.com suggests the following frequencies:

• For maximum growth: post multiple times per day to drive the most traffic (3-5 times or more is considered best for power bloggers).
• For steady growth: post at least once per day.
• For slower growth: publish at least every 3 days or 2-3 times per week.
• For very slow growth: posting less frequently than 2-3 days per week is most appropriate for bloggers who maintain blogs as a hobby with no strategic plans for growth 

All of this sounded like very good advice. So for the first few months I tried to post 5 days a week, though generally managed 4. During this period my traffic slowly (painfully slowly) started to increase. Small miracles happened which would give me a sudden burst, and then it would settle down again. 

When I had to go back to full time work, my number of posts dropped off. I wanted to do 3 times a week, but sometimes struggled to even make 1. During these times, there was a direct correlation between the number of times I posted and the traffic for that week. Every day that I did write something, there was a spike in my stats. After that, it would slowly decrease over the next few days until I posted again. This reinforced to me my need to post as frequently as I could.

However, on my fitness blog, which is newer than 100FD, I found that even though I posted less often and had less content (though it was solid) I still had stronger stats that didn't dwindle based on posting frequency. The reason for this is because the majority of traffic is from Google to a small number of articles which rank really well. I had spent time promoting a few of my articles so they ranked well, which ended up paying a lot more dividends than writing more posts. (I mainly used article marketing to get backlinks and authority.) This is much more in the style of the second suggested method.

Method 2:  Less Writing, More Promotion

One advocate of this message is John Locke who wrote the book 'How I Sold A Million EBooks In 5 Months' (has some good tips here and there though a lot of his success I think is based on his personal circumstances and wouldn't work for everyone the same way. But since I paid $2.75 for the kindle version, I thought it was worth the investment.) He has a blog he posts on about once a month! I was completely shocked when I heard this. At the time of writing his book, he only had about 7 posts on the entire blog! So why does he do it this way? (And yes, it is a conscious decision, not just because he's lazy.)

The arguments in favour of this method include:

1. You only have top quality content on your site.

2. When you write a great piece, it doesn't immediately get buried but is available for people to read for a longer period.

3. If you haven't got much traffic, you should spend more time generate traffic than putting up content that no one is reading. 

4. Most of the reasons why you should post frequently don't apply as a new blogger: you aren't going to rank well on the search engines no matter what, and without readers or subscribers, no one is sharing your content or looking out for you. 

5. Instead, you want exposure: you want to spend your time appearing on every major blog in your areas so people actually know you.

However, the keys to this method, which a lot of people ignore, is a) making sure your content is even stronger and better researched than if you posted more frequently and b) still spending the same amount of time on the computer, but just using it differently. 

I have to say, this method has a lot going for it. With so many blogs out there, it is almost impossible to be found without a miracle if you aren't active in the community. Unless you already have a very strong readership who will come to you just because you are you, I think focusing on being known in the community is a much better use of your time.

In my own personal experience, I have to admit that the big jumps in traffic for me came from a) being linked to in Nathan Branford's post about Heifer International (which only happened because I was reading his blog and commented), b) being in ROW 80 and having my blog appear in a blog hop every week, then c) going to those other ROW 80 blogs and commenting and just being active in that community. 

I heard another point in favour of infrequent posting on The Self-Publishing Podcast (this is a great podcast, though does have a lot of swearing and could easily be cut in half they spend so much time laughing at their own jokes. However, they do give some great tips in amongst that). Their advice was particularly focused on writers trying to become visible as an author (rather than just trying to get people to your blog to sell them things there). They suggested that if you have the material for a great post, instead of putting it on your blog, you should think about turning it into a free ebook to download through Amazon KDP Select. One of the hosts did this in reverse, taking a popular blog post and turning it into an ebook which is now free, and it gets downloaded roughly 90 times per day. That's a lot of people seeing you on Amazon where your other books will be.

Further, they argued that if you don't have a great idea for a post that day, spend the time on actually writing your novels! Don't blog at the expense of actually getting your writing out there because you can't count on becoming well-known based on even a handful of books. You need to be prolific (with quality) if you want to be discovered as an author. 

This is good to remember, that your promotion should not be at the expensive of your writing. However, I also strongly believe that as a writer you need to practice as much as you can. What better way to practice and train as a writer than to spend 30 minutes a day or a few times a week writing and then getting feedback on that writing? The discipline itself is a great reason to blog more often. Further, for me, a lot of my blog posts help create my 'Five Day Writer' series, so the more I post, the more of my books I get written. 

So, in summary, it's not as simple as blog more/ blog less.

Key Points To Remember:

- For either method, you are still spending the same time online (not writing novels/living/etc), just one is focused on producing more content, and the other is focused on getting more exposure for less content. 

- I believe you still need an archive of posts before you start promoting yourself.

- If you want to build up your platform super-fast, then you need to spend more time overall both producing more content and getting more exposure. 

- Every new blogger needs to introduce themselves to the community somehow. Just writing content and hoping that someone will read it is a very, very slow way to go. 

- You are a writer! Writing blog posts is all part of your training. So don't be afraid of it. 

- Make sure you are in a niche that excites you enough that you can write lots of content.

Final point which I think is sound: whichever you decide to do, let your reader know. If they know how often and when you are going to post (every Monday, or every first Monday of the month) they will be more likely to remember to come back on check on you. 

Otherwise, they might keep coming back for a week and since nothing new is there give up. On the other hand, they might subscribe, but once they realise you post everyday, they might just start deleting you from their inbox. 

Talking about subscribing... have you subscribed to 100 first drafts yet? Sign up to receive posts via email, or become a follower. 

(I'm trying to post 1-3 times per week at the moment, just in case you were wondering :D).

Is Imitation the Greatest Form of Flattery for Writers?

Last night when I found I couldn't get to sleep, I pulled out a book I've been reading on and off for a few months now. It's 'Unlimited Power' by Anthony Robbins. Disclaimer here: Robbins has some good ideas and great exercises, but some of his science or logic is not so strong. However, I still recommend it if you feel you are in a rut. (Just to clarify: it's not about writing, it's about positive thinking for all things).

So last night I was reading his chapter 'Syntax for Success'. Let me briefly summarise his point so you know what I'm talking about. If you want to be successful don't invent the wheel again, watch the actions and methods of those who are successful. Like baking a cake, if you can get the recipe with ingredients, amounts, and the correct procedure, you too can make the world's best cake.

He states: 'The point here is for you to realize that even when you have little or no background information and even when circumstances seem impossible, if you have an excellent model of how to produce a result, you can discover specifically what the model does and duplicate it – and thus produce similar results in a much shorter period of time than you may be thought possible.' (p. 119). The example he was using referred to creating a training course in firearms for the army.

I began to wonder if it applies exactly the same to more creative pursuits.

There is a rage in books at the moment (well, starting a few decades ago) which argue that talent is overrated, that most of what we perceive as talent is actually the result of work and good coaching. I'll probably discuss this idea more later because I do find it fascinating and is part is one of the motivators behind my writing challenge: to test the argument that says anyone can become an expert at anything if they dedicate an hour a day for 10 years (I think that's the time frame suggested).

However, I do also agree with Stephen King when he says that there are bad writers and brilliant writers, and you can't move between these two. I think is is particularly obvious in writing, where there are a lot of prolific writers who never get much better and then there are a few brilliant writers who only ever wrote one book. Having said that, I am sure that I can turn myself from a competent writer into a good writer through more practice. But what type of practice?

As I'm sure all teachers have said for most of eternity: only perfect practice makes perfect. This, I think, is what Robbins is getting at. If you want to become better at something, you can't continue just doing what you have always done. You need to improve your practice methods. And for this he suggests modelling. But does that work in writing?

The ancient Greeks started teaching rhetoric through extensive modelling, playing with form and content. Students would take well known stories or speeches and have to keep the style of them the same but change the content, or keep the content but change the style. This was the basis of their studies and until they had mastered this, were not allowed to go on and try creating something original. (See Aristotle's Rhetoric, he goes into a lot of detail.)

The confusion is, as Dorothea points out, most people imitate the wrong aspects. She argue that 'the philosophies, the ideas, the dramatic notions of other writers of fiction should not be directly adopted...' (p.105) Any author that claims they are writing 'like so and so...' is generally falling into this trap. If I see one more awful romance that states they are writing in the style of Georgette Heyer, I might do physical damage. They do not mean they have her technical excellence in writing or historical knowledge, but they have copied her boy-meets-girl plot lines, and usually not very creatively at that.

According to Dorothea, what you should try to study is Technical Excellence. 'But technical excellences can be imitated, and with great advantage. When you have found a passage, long or short, which seems to you far better than anything of the sort you are yet able to do, sit down to learn from it.' (p.106). (Yes, I am personally directing that to anyone who thinks they write Georgette Heyer's better than Georgette Heyer.)

I believe the essential difference can be seen in Robbin's cake metaphor. If you follow all the ingredients and all the same steps, you get the same cake. In this case, you get a book that someone else has already written. So therefore many people take a famous book and try to keep all the same ingredients but change the sequence or amounts. What sort of cake would that make? The same basic flavour, but badly cooked. If people wanted that cake, they would just eat the one made by the expert. But writers who want to make quick money always try to make the same flavour cake as the best seller at the time. Bad writer, bad!

What the ancient Greeks and Dorothea Brande and doubtless others have realised is that in writing you want to learn the ordering and techniques of cooking, so then you can add in your own ingredients and make a completely different but excellent cake.

Therefore, the concept of becoming an expert at writing through practice must still require you to be able to invent your own ingredients, but study the techniques of others. However, there will be some who are just not able to do this part of invention and no amount of training will give it to them. So, I do not entirely agree that everyone who practices enough can become a good writer. However, if one has a little invention, then the technique of writing can be learned.

Therefore, am dedicating myself to trying to improve what I can. Now, I just have to work out ways to practice the technical elements of writers I like. I might read a bit more Aristotle and see what he suggests.

Summary of my weekend's writing:

Yesterday was a great day of writing, making just over 10,000 new words for only the second time (I think) since beginning. Today I got 4,000 done, but also managed to do all my washing, and hopefully cook enough food to get me through the week, so I count that as a win. I'm over halfway through my next book, and have been surprised a few times by twists and turns my characters have taken me on. Still can't see the end, but am learning not to let that worry me. 

I also got to read quite a bit of Connie Willis' Blackout, though I'm afraid of finishing it before I can get the next one as I've heard it is a cliff-hanger. The verdict is still out on cliff-hangers between books. I hate it enough at the season's end of TV shows, but I feel a book can have a lead into a sequel, but to make a reader wait at least a year for the next to come to get closure should come with a warning on the front. 

Sweet practice my little writers.

Buffy.