Tag Archives: blog tips

My experimental new rules of blogging

1. Post most days.
2. Don’t spend more than half an hour on a post.
3. Don’t go meta and write about how you’re going to blog or what you’re going to say or what new blogging approach you’re about to try. Just do it.*
4. Pick a title after you write the post.
5. Don’t make a dumb clickbaity title.
6. For the love of God, don’t post about yet another system you’re trying until you’ve actually stuck with it for a couple weeks at the very least.
7. You can break any rule about 10% of the time.

Note from past Ben, circa 2/20/17:

Rule 6 also says this post should never have existed.

The best I could do to get around my compulsive need to share this dumb new thing–which my smart brain objectively knows to be a dumb new thing that has a 7% chance of lasting more than two days, but my dumb brain absolutely has to share with the world right now omgz–was to schedule the post to go up two weeks in the future.

The issue with this workaround is that if, as I fear and partly expect, I have merrily forgotten all about this Glorious New System by Thursday, you’ll all still see this ill-conceived nonsense in two weeks. If, on the other hand, I’m still touching my blog most days two weeks from now, I may at that point actually remember to take down this post which, however, will at that point have a much more legitimate reason to exist.

Sigh. Brains. Can’t live with ’em. Can’t live without ’em.

* Regarding this post, see Rule 7.

A Thought Experiment for Better Blog Ideas

Out of ideas for blog posts? Drifting into boring or repetitive territory? Here’s an idea.

Pick a few of your good friends, the kind who get your jokes and like what you like and get embroiled in long late-night conversations/debates/frank exchanges of views with you. If you don’t have friends like this, make a few up.

Now write those friends a note that says something like:

Hey guys,

I just found a new blog that you’re going to love. Seriously. Look at the kinds of things they put up.
–
–
–

Plus they’ve got a thing on ______ and a bunch of stuff on ______ and _______. It’s totally going to make you <fill in a desirable reaction, e.g. think, laugh, see Firefly in a whole new light>.

Seriously. Go read it now.

Yours in haste,
Me

Except fill in the blanks. Those are probably the kind of things you should be writing about.

Cheers!
—Ben

365 Days. 365 Posts. 1 Nerd. [Edit: Now With Additional Nerd!]

As usual, I love the way bookshelfbattle thinks. This post is well worth reading if you’re interested in goal-setting, finding readers, or developing a writing practice. Before I send you on to the original post, a few thoughts and responses:

1. I love that this is concrete, actionable, and attainable. You can’t decide whether someone follows you, but you can decide whether you’re going to post; make your goals in terms of things you can do.

2. Quantity and consistency are worthy goals. It seems there’s some debate about whether it’s worth pushing for quantity instead of quality. My stance is that if quality is your goal, quantity is a great path to it.

3. I like that bookshelfbattle isn’t shy about trying to get readers. That’s the whole point. Writers want readers. And readers want good stuff to read. If you don’t think your stuff is worth reading, write better stuff before you go public.

If, however, you think your writing is worthwhile, why would you not want to give it to as many people as will benefit from it? Applying strategy and focus does not make this evil, it makes it effective.

4. I’m joining in, but more cautiously. (Caution™! Putting the boring back into success!)

I’m planning to post every weekday, holidays optional, through the first quarter of 2015. I’m still figuring out where blogging fits into my overall career strategy as a writer, but I’m enjoying it so far and I think three months will make a good baseline.

Also I really appreciated bookshelfbattle’s willingness to share stats, so for the record:

After about 2 1/2 weeks of posting consistently, I currently average something like 10 visitors a day, with about 40 people following.
End of March will be (let’s see…math math math) 42 more days of posting, so by then I’d like to see at least 100 following, with 25-30+ visitors a day.

Really what I’d like to see is more people reading my stories, so in addition to posting I’ll probably be experimenting with new ways to make those more visible and fun.

Anyway, enough from me. Enjoy. And if you have any thoughts on what you’d most like to read about here, I’d love to hear it, so leave me a comment and let me know.

Cheers!
—Ben

PS – It will be especially hard for me to write quick posts without worrying too much about quality. I think that alone will be a useful discipline to develop.