This blog post was inspired by Mitch Joel’s podcast #241 with Valeria Maltoni (who writes a fabulous marketing blog called Conversation Agent).
Mitch and Valeria both blog 6-7 times a week consistently. Mitch explains that many people believe that blogging is really, really hard and that it’s difficult to come up with topics every single day, “but when you are living and breathing in something that you love, I am actually really challenged ….to decide what I am going to blog about.” Mitch talks about the fast speed in which he writes, that he “pounds it out” and “thats how I feel”.
So many bloggers or potential bloggers I spend time with seem to struggle hitting the publish button on their blogs. Many bloggers I know spend so much time perfecting their post, that their blog suffers. The time and effort that goes into writing and pushing that publish button is overwhelming and practically holds them hostage.
I joke with new bloggers that they shouldn’t spend endless hours perfecting their first posts because it is likely that a new blogger’s posts are not going to get very many views! I believe that a new blogger’s first 5-10 posts should be well written and thought provoking, but they should be quick, and it is more important to get used to hitting that publish button than it is to write an eloquent post.
It reminds me of writing an important email that is going to a large group of people. We often write it, proof it, reread it, reproof it, get a peer to read it, then finally when we hit that send button it is a relief, but how much time did we waste in the hesitation of clicking send? Sure the email may be perfectly written, but did it still convey the exact same message as the first draft did? Could we have sent it out after proofing the email twice instead of eleven times?
Hitting the publish button on your blog can be very liberating and we should all feel a sense of accomplishment everytime we publish a piece of content, it’s a big deal. To help you actually hit that publish button more often you can set some writing guidlines that can help in the writing process.
For example a guideline could be that once you write a draft post you will publish it within one day, or that you will write AND publish a post in one sitting. There should be some passion and hopefully some speed or urgency behind your writing, as Mitch Joel of Six Pixels often talks about, “punch it out”.
Yes I believe in proofing your posts, but not so much that it inhibits the writing and publishing process. Proof your article, but have fun clicking that publish button (maybe a bit earlier than you would normally). Then move onto your next article!
And heck, you can always go and edit the article if you made any major mistakes…happy publishing!