A thousand years ago when I started blogging people used to complain that I updated my blog too frequently. They said my pace made it impossible to keep up with and I said there was never an obligation to read everything I write.
They said my pace made it impossible to keep up.
I always appreciated the sentiment but found it funny that they felt obligated to read it all.
Today I rarely update two or three times a day, every day the way I used to and it is no longer unusual for me to take the weekend off.
Reader Expectations
Some of you might wonder how much weight I give to meeting my reader’s expectations, especially after I mentioned some people complained about how frequently I update.
The answer is I don’t let my readers guide all I do nor do I disregard their wishes entirely.
I do my best to produce and publish content that interests me based upon a schedule that fits my day.
The idea is that if I am bored by what I am writing I can’t expect you to be interested either. And I figure that if you like my writing you’ll figure out what my publishing schedule is and respond accordingly.
All that being said I realized that since I’ll be gone for a few days the content I post before I leave will go stale and that is not good for retaining readers.
Had I thought about this in advance I could have planned for it and written a couple of posts to fill the gaps.
Maybe An Editorial Calendar Would Help
In concept it could keep me more organized and help prevent minor problems like the one I just described.
However I prefer to let the content here generate on a more organic basis so I have avoided using the calendar. Thus far that has worked pretty well for me but there may come a time where I am too busy to write without mapping it all out in advance.
Since I haven’t done it yet what you are reading now is a five-minute post I wrote Monday morning. It is scheduled to go live on Wednesday and to potentially serve as a placeholder until Friday night…maybe.
I might find time to blog and decide that I am willing to do so with my phone in which case this post won’t hold the same weight as it would if I didn’t update.
But in case I don’t you have this and the links below to keep you company until I return.
- How To Become A Better Writer- Build Your Vocabulary
- If You Write It They Will Come
- The Best Cover Letter….Ever
- Some Things I’ll Teach My Children (Updated)
- One Slightly Used Pump For Sale
- 1 Foolproof Way To Become a Better Writer
- A Father Describes Parenting
- The GermoPhobe
- Donuts
- An Uncertain Certainty
- Four Generations & A Wedding
- The Best Thing My Father Ever Said To Me
- Twenty-Five Links That Will Make You A Better Writer/Blogger
See you soon.
Interesting that you mention how much weight you give to meeting a reader’s expectation. That’s a post I have in draft to write about. The subject comes up from time to time on my blog so I thought I’d talk about it at some point!
I don’t write on my blog as often as I used to. I still publish once a week or as much as I can. I use CoSchedule as my editorial calendar but in all honesty I could get away without using it. I like the fact that it publishes posts to social media too though so for now I’ll keep it.
I try to balance reader interest against my interest and availability.
I have to look at CoSchedule, Sounds like might be useful.
I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s very helpful.
I tried scheduling posts before when I knew I would be driving for a few days. I didn’t like it that much, so I quit doing it. I guess I didn’t know you when you were posting several times a day, but like you said, we don’t have to read all of them.
I don’t update with the same frequency and haven’t in a long while. But for a while I had one reader in particular who would complain and I would always ask them why they felt obligated to read everything.
I was about to ask you if you schedule your post, but I discovered the answer close to the end of the article.
I use a editorial calendar (CoSchedule). I use it to schedule posts, and to have an overview of my posts. This helps me stay productive, and it helps me write a variations of posts.
I don’t think you need to be publishing at specific times and at specific days of the week. It’s very easy to keep up with everything now that you’re using Postmatic.
I suppose if I get busier I might choose to look at a calendar as a tool to help me stay organized, but up to now I have managed without it. Might check out CoSchedule just to see what it looks like,