Jake Goldman and I have a disagreement. I blog every day. He blogs … every quarter?
When I started my daily blogging endeavor, he asked whether or not I could keep things up all year. I have no doubt in his confidence I could create a daily post. His question was more rooted in the quality of those daily posts.
Another friend of mine actually started keeping track of “quality versus fluff” in the early days. Thankfully he gave up after the first month – it was too much pressure for me to write things that avoided his definition of “fluff.”
Some writers make daily blogging seem effortless. I have never known Chris Lema to produce a meaningless post, and he’s been doing the daily thing far longer than I have. I also know he plans out his various series weeks – even months – in advance. I have trouble just planning a few days ahead.
Some people blog daily to gain the increased traffic that comes from a frequent, predictable publication schedule. In fact, one of the first changes I noticed on my site was the amount of traffic it actually sees every day. Other people blog daily because they have messages they want to get out – series that are important to a target demographic – in easily consumable chunks.
Yet other people shy away from daily blogging because they don’t necessarily have the time to devote to polishing content in the format they desire on a daily basis.
Jake is one of these people.
Long-form Content
When I read blogs, I enjoy long-form, well-illustrated content the most. 300-word articles are great for pulp reading, but long-form content is what really gets me to think.
The downside of long-form writing is that it takes a long time to write a long post. Well, it take a long time to write a good long post. When you’re as busy as Jake,[ref]I’ve seen his schedule. It’s insane. If you think you’re busy, think again. Even when I book myself for 12-hour days during a crunch period, he’s still busier than I am. The fact that Jake finds time to write at all is a miracle.[/ref] carving out time to draft a short post is a challenge. Finding time to outline, draft, and polish a longer article is nearly impossible unless writing makes up a large portion of your schedule.
The advantage of infrequently-published long-form writing, though, is that every article is seen as more important.
Wait… could this be?? Did I just blog? Why yes: I did. 😀 http://t.co/MTXHBJldHI pic.twitter.com/LnbSXiwkz2
— Jake Goldman (@jakemgold) August 9, 2014
When Jake publishes something, I read it. Every word.
When Chris publishes something, I skim it.[ref]No offense to Chris, but the consequence of daily writing is that it gives readers something to read every day. If I don’t have time one day, I’ll put it off. This sometimes leads to a backlog of several days of Lema posts … I’d love to read them all, but usually have time to only skim the key points and read one or two in-depth.[/ref]
There’s a considerable trade-off if you want to focus on long-form writing but don’t consider that writing to be your day job. Fortunately, that trade-off (the inability to publish frequently) is often added value for a discerning reader base who can expect your infrequently updated blog to be of a certain quality.
Why do you blog? Why do you keep the schedule you keep? Does your editorial calendar hurt or help your end goals?