A couple weeks ago I wrote a column giving advice on how to avoid abandoning your blog fiction. The very first tip was "Decide on a manageable posting schedule". Reading back, I left out how to determine that manageable posting schedule. Determining your posting schedule is simple. Rather than just haphazardly guesstimating about how many posts you can do, I created a formula to figure out how many posts a week you should do.
It boils down to a simple formula. Look at your life. How many minutes a week do you have to spend on your blog fiction(call this 'T', for Total time)? Subtract the amount of time you need to spend marking and maintaining your site(call this 'M' for Marketing and Maintenance time). Now, Divide that number by the amount of time it takes you to write a single post (call this 'P' for Posting time). What number you have is the number of posts you can realistically make in a week. Formula: Number of posting per week = (T - M) / P. For example, if you have 480 minutes(8 hours) a week to spend on your blog. You intend to spend 1 hour(60 minutes) of that promoting your site. And finally, let's say it takes you 3 hours (180 minutes) to do a post. In the end, it comes to (480 - 40) / 180 = 2.44 posts a week for our imaginary author.
Obviously one would find it difficult to write .44 posts. I would always round down. That way you know what you can almost always accomplish. The worse that can happen is that you'll start getting a backlog of posts and you can take a vacation once in a while. Short post today, but this formula is something I'm going to use the next time I start a blog fiction and thought others might find it useful.
(T - M) / P = N
T = Time to spend on Blog
M = Marketing and Maintence
P = Amount of posting
N = Number of posts per week
Determining your posting schedule
Labels: Blog Fiction, writing tips |
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9 comments:
I'm quite envious of any writers who are able to do this. Some of my posts are written in half an hour, others take many hours.
Mental discipline is the greatest obstacle facing any writer. That is, disciplining yourself to write a certain amount every day. On top of mere writing, blogging requires you to publish and present your work in a coherent fashion. If you are like me and can't bear to have half-ass work up on your site, then most likely you'll lean toward getting much of the writing done beforehand. That's what I've opted to do for the continuation of my Spain series. I plan to write the entire rest of the series and then return to blogging, rough draft in hand. Sure I'll be off writing for a good month or two, but that time off will pay off when I'm organized and knowing the arc of the story my posts will be more interesting.
Charlotte,
Why is there such a disparity between how long it takes to write your posts?
Lethe said>>Mental discipline is the greatest obstacle facing any writer.
You can say that again. I don't know why it is that some days I can write and plot 8 ours straight and be eager for more and then other days I can't type a single sentence.
Well, Dustin, creative immersion is a definite enigma. Some days we immerse easily, some days we don't. Why is this? Seems to be a matter of mood, the day, how things are going, how interested you are in your characters, how inspired you are that day. But one thing remains clear, the deeper we immerse into our own work, the deeper our readers will immerse as well.
I'm amazed that you made/provided this formula... I don't think I'm that smart, lol
My goal for posts per week keep changing, so maybe I just need to get on mental discipline.
The plan is twice per month - every other Wednesday.
lethe - Well put on both comments
Well, some posts flow more naturally as I'm writing them-- if it's something I relate to more, for example, or if shows up really vividly in my mind. Others I have to grasp at more and sort of force the scene out, then go back through it and see if it works, and fix it to make it consistent/believable. (This might be more applicable to fiction blogs than nonfic, I'm not sure.)
I also don't exactly have a consistent schedule-- in the summer I worked very erratic hours, and now I'm back at college, which is also quite hectic. I'm sure that doesn't help either.
I enjoyed reading some of your blog novel Charlotte. You are very talented.
One amendment required, in my opinion:
'How many minutes a week do you have to spend on your blog fiction?'
to
'How many minutes a week can you spend ENJOYING writing your blog fiction?'
... because I think sure, lack of time is a major cause of fiction blog death-by-starvation. But another is lack of enjoyment/fulfilment/fun. People over-commit their leisure time, they get stressed, they get grumpy, they feel as though their blog is now a chore, and unlike personal blogs, fiction blogs aren't always well-suited to rants, raves or big fat whinges about how crap life can get.
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