Last November, I posted Publish or Perish, where I promised to try to write and share, or publish, new blog posts more consistently. It seemed like this experiment was an abject failure.
I updated Publish or Perish this March when I learned how to increase my publishing rate by writing on Quora.com. But I still wasn’t publishing new material nearly as often as I hoped.
Even though I consistently write every day, at least 750 words or more, I was having trouble publishing posts with any kind of consistency. Now, finally, I’m publishing something almost every day.
What’s the difference?
I think the biggest change is adding a focused project that I’m really excited about — this makes writing easy.
I want to share what I’ve learned. I want to share my successes, and also my failures. This approach I stumbled on demonstrates a great way to start a blog: pick a topic that interests you, and then learn everything you can about that topic.
As part of the learning process, write about what you’ve learned. This approach has a number of benefits:
- Your writing is better because you’re writing about a topic that interests you.
- Writing about something you’ve learned is an excellent way to consolidate your newly acquired knowledge.
- If you write about something that you’ve just learned, in a way that other people can understand, it will increase your retention and overall understanding.
- You might help other people out.
- You’ll build a blog with lots of content.
- You may even attract an audience.
You can’t capture an audience’s attention unless you have something to share with them.
That’s why writing deeply about something you care about and enjoy learning more about is such a rich and rewarding source of new ideas and strong writing.
Right now, no one is visiting my new blog, because it just went live this week. I’ve got about 16 posts and a few pages up already. I’m still tweaking it, but I’m pleased with how it turned out. You can check it out here: Bye Bye Blubber – First, focus on health. Then burning blubber is easy.
How did I launch my new blog?
I built my new blog in WordPress with the TwentySeventeen theme. I found a lot of great photos on Unsplash and by using CC Search.
I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Take a look and let me know what you think!
I haven’t done anything to drive traffic yet, but I’ll start working on that soon. In the meantime, I can publish stuff to my new blog and not get too fussy about it, because honestly no one is going to read it right now. I’ve got time to review and edit my work.
Although, I did get my first spam comment today. That’s a milestone!
Why publishing every day is hard
Not having to worry about actual readers makes it easier to publish.
I also found the exact opposite. In the update I added to Publish or perish, I talked about how answering questions on Quora helped me get over my reluctance to publish.
The reason was simple: I was answering specific questions for real people. I then figured out that I could collect these answers and publish them on my blog.
The main reason that publishing on the regular is so hard is because I find writing easy, but editing hard.
I don’t worry too much about my edits now, though. I read through to make sure I don’t have any major grammatical errors, I’ll break up run-on sentences (a major issue for me) and keep my grafs short.
I’ve also gotten better at accepting that my posts aren’t going to be perfect, not ever. The only way to get better at publishing posts is to publish posts.
This means I’m going to publish some stuff that isn’t that amazing. But it’s the only way to improve: practice and more practice. Plus, when I publish what I write, I open the possibility that I might get some feedback from real people.
In addition to edits, good blog posts have photos and graphics. I’m getting better at finding Creative Commons licensed photos with CC Search or Unsplash. I always, always credit the artist. But it takes time, even though it improves readership.
It’s really that second (and maybe third or fourth pass) at a post that makes publishing so difficult. But, I’m building the habit, learning to get it done. The more I publish, the easier it gets. Let’s see if that turns into traffic and readers.
The StratoPress 