A number of readers have noticed that my posting frequency has slowed here at ProBlogger over the past couple of weeks and have asked if everything is ok.
Thanks for your concern – I appreciate it a lot but please don’t be worried. There are a number of reasons for the slowdown – some of them I can talk freely about, others will become apparent in the next day or two.
Tapping into my recent posts on blogging with lists – here’s my Top Ten Reasons why ProBlogger has slowed down:
1. Post August reaction– posting frequency HAD to slow down after the frenzy that was August’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. In August I posted 204 times here – so far this month I’ve posted 71 (still not too bad in my books at over 3.5 posts per day). I never intended to keep up the pace of Ausust but have perhaps found myself with slightly less to say as a result of saying so much then.
2. Offline Work – as I’ve mentioned I’m in the final stages of a two day per week research position that I’ve been working on for the past 6 months. Deadlines have meant less time for blogging. October 3rd is the next and almost final deadline.
3. Six Figure Blogging – the course on this topic that Andy and I have been working is in its second week and I’ve been putting my consulting efforts into this. So far it’s gone really well – we’ve got an amazing and very talented bunch of bloggers signed up and I’m really enjoying our interactions.
4. New Projects – those of you who subscribe to my newsletter will have just received an email with a sneak peak at a new blog project that will go live in the next 48 hours. It’s take a bit of time to get off the ground. It is not the only new thing I’ve got on the go with negotiations on other online and offline projects under way.
5. Admin – the admin of running a growing business takes me away from my first love of blogging at times. This week has been one of meetings with accountants, book keeping and strategic thinking about companies, trusts, business names and what not. I don’t particularly enjoy this side of things but it’s a neccessary part of what I do.
6. Expanding the Team – I’ve had the realization over the past few months that to continue expanding my blogging business that I’ll have to either clone myself or learn to delegate. As a result I’m very slowly moving towards adding new writers in a paid capacity to some of my blogs. The way forward as to how to structure this is a little tricky and I’m taking my time on it – but am in the final stages of adding a great new blogger into the mix on one of my blogs. Hopefully in time there will be scope to add more as we work out how it might function.
7. Re-visioning ProBlogger – while I’m still totally committed to the overall vision of ProBlogger.net to ‘help bloggers earn money’ – I’ve had a number of growing concerns about what I do here that I’m still working through how to process. I’m committed to the idea of offering free advice and sharing my knowledge on ‘how to’ blog for money but am wondering how the best way to deliver that information is. A number of factors are at play here including the increasing number of requests that I get for consultation work (normally freebie work) and attempting to make this blog viable on a commercial level (it’s still barely earnings $5 per day which isn’t great considering the hour or two I spend on it each day). I’m yet to find the best delivery method for achieving my goals for ProBlogger and have been toying with some different models this past week or two.
8. Disillusionment – I hesitate to mention this here – but I believe in transparent blogging so I’ll give you a glimpse of my thought processes. While 99% of the time ProBlogger is a joy to run, there have been a few times recently where I have been a bit disillusioned by it when I see the way in which a small number of readers are using the information that I write. For example this week someone emailed me a copy of an e-book which indirectly uses me and this blog to promote Blog Spam. They don’t anything illegal or use my content – but point readers to my blog to learn principles to help them in their spamming careers. This is the second time I’ve seen this happen. Similarly I’ve seen readers take many of the principles that I talk about and use them in ways that either are pretty unethical or explicitly competing with my own blogs. I want to keep all this in perspective of course – ProBlogger continues to be something that I love and the disillusionment is still a very small part – but I’ll admit that it has been growing a little bit lately and perhaps is impacting my posting frequency.
9. Intentional Slow Down – A number of readers have reflected back to me over the past few months that the posting frequency was so high that they just couldn’t keep up. I decided at the start of September to reel back my posting levels as an experiment to see what would happen. The result has been interesting. Traffic remains at a similar level to August (in fact it will be up) but the numbers of comments being left on posts is dramatically up. I don’t have any figures at hand – but last 20 or so posts have been more commented upon posts than I’ve seen in a long while on any of my blogs.
10. Real Life – I am increasingly aware that I need to take time for ‘real life’. Fun, friends, family, rest recreation and relaxation – all these R and F words and more! As a result I’ve started a vegetable garden (and have resisted starting a blog to document it), am walking more and have decided to lighten up on blogging schedule on weekends. I realize that if I want to expand my business that I’ll only ever sustain it if I’m looking after myself.
So there you have it – my top ten reasons for not posting as much. I write them both to keep everyone in the picture of what is happening here at ProBlogger – but also because hopefully it shows some of the things that a full time blogger works through over time. It’s not just about sitting around in your Pajamas all day randomly writing stuff!
