http://professionalwatches.com

-JP

My second issue is that I review other sites. This in itself is enjoyable, but always seems to lead to me “surfing the net” for prolonged periods of time… sometimes resulting in me ending up on Problogger instead of looking for printables. :)

Batch writing/image creating might help this to some degree. But, unless you’ve got a magic “don’t get distracted by the internet” wand I’m screwed. :)

There are so many celebrity events to cover that I had to come up with a system to decide which events to cover and which not to, and be very picky about it. On a good day when I have more time to post, I can squeeze out 6-8 posts. On a busy day when I worked my day job and come home exhausted, like yesterday, and after spending time with family, etc., I fell asleep and didn’t post at all, much to my chagrin.

The biggest block to me posting more efficiently is browsing all the pictures and deciding which events to cover. Unfortunately, my photo supplier does not organize their photos in a way that makes it easy to find them. I have suggested that they organize their photos in groups, by date, to make it easier to search (like Getty Images or Wireimage), but right now they do it in a continuous stream instead. It can take me at least an hour or two to browse through all of the photos of the day, time I could have spent posting instead.

Besides hiring staff (which I am not able to do right now), the other thing that has helped me post more quickly is technology. Thanks to Firefox, I am able to use tools and add-ons like ScribeFire and CoLT. CoLT has been a lifesaver for enabling me to instantly post links with two clicks.

There are so many celebrity events to cover that I had to come up with a system to decide which events to cover and which not to, and be very picky about it. On a good day when I have more time to post, I can squeeze out 6-8 posts. On a busy day when I worked my day job and come home exhausted, like yesterday, and after spending time with family, etc., I fell asleep and didn’t post at all, much to my chagrin.

The biggest block to me posting more efficiently is browsing all the pictures and deciding which events to cover. Unfortunately, my photo supplier does not organize their photos in a way that makes it easy to find them. I have suggested that they organize their photos in groups, by date, to make it easier to search (like Getty Images or Wireimage), but right now they do it in a continuous stream instead. It can take me at least an hour or two to browse through all of the photos of the day, time I could have spent posting instead.

Besides hiring staff, the other thing that has helped me post more quickly is technology. Thanks to Firefox, I am able to use tools and add-ons like ScribeFire and CoLT. CoLT has been a lifesaver for enabling me to instantly post links with two clicks.

“Cranking out this many quality posts would take most people a week or more, not a coffee shop visit. Great advice but unrealistic for all but the most inspired prolific writers.”

I wholeheartedly disagree. It’s unrealistic for people who focus TOO much on the polish, instead of using their time effectively to just sit and write.

It’s a matter of just doing it. Write, write, and write more. Sure, after you’ve done your brainstorming and thought about your topics, scanned your RSS feeds, and so on, but when it comes time to just crank out 4-5 posts, it really IS as easy as a few cups of coffee and a few hours. Believing otherwise is an excuse and nothing more.

We have bloggers with b5media who are mothers with ill or otherwise out of work husbands, home schooled kids, major house renovations, and whose only income is that of their blogging (with b5 and elsewhere), who are cranking out 20-30 QUALITY posts a month PER blog, for 5-6 blogs each and every month, on TOP of their other writing and freelance work, and with everything else going on in their lives.

I’m sorry, but if they can do it, you can. At least, you can come up with 4-5 posts in a few hours’ time. No excuses, period.

Cranking out this many quality posts would take most people a week or more, not a coffee shop visit. Great advice but unrealistic for all but the most inspired prolific writers. Wired has an interesting article how it is next to impossible for the standalone blogger to be heard among all the established blogs with teams of writers churning out up to 30 posts today. http://tinyurl.com/5f59ns

Wired Mag suggests twitter, facebook, and other new media where new writers have a chance at being heard because the playing field is a bit more level.

Blogging is not as easy as it used to be.

Another thing that I love to do is make a series posts such a Part One, Part Two, and so on.

I wish one time, you could share your views on how to do it properly.

But of course, making posts for the sake of posting a capital sin for me.

Thanks.

This is so true! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten half way through a post just to say to myself, “why am I writing this?” Usually, the answer is because I feel like I’m supposed to. Needless to say, I also have quite a few half written posts. Grrr.

Sometimes I find the work that I’m not happpy with is the sort of thing that is actually popular with my visitors, and posting something that isn’t what *I* personally consider great, may infact contain a snippet that my visitors do get benefit from.

The other way of thinking is that the more content you have on your site the better, after all it is going to get chewed over by the search engines and potentially bring new visitors.

Sometimes its very difficult to make that call, especially if you are a newbie blogger – I think that shoud ring true for more established sites that have a reputation to maintain rather than one that potentially needs as much fresh content as possible.