Blog Archives
Blogging on a schedule, redux
When I wrote about blogging on a schedule in mid-2013, I made it pretty clear that I didn’t think it was the right move for “Tea with Gary.” I had some pretty good reasons for feeling that way, too. Go ahead. Read the post. I’ll wait.
…
Done yet? Good! Now I’ll tell you why I think I’ve changed my mind.
When I was a kid, I remember getting up Sunday morning and looking forward to reading the Sunday funnies. Oh, who am I kidding? I did that as an adult, too. I kept my Sunday subscription to the paper years after I dropped the daily subscription, mostly to get those comics. When I was regularly listening to podcasts, I looked forward to Science Friday every week. These days, I look forward to xkcd updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Speaking of xkcd, a slight tweak to today’s comic explains why I was reluctant to update on a regular schedule:
Oh, no! It’s Friday and I have to have a blog post! Whatever shall I do?
I’ve always felt that writing to a deadline ruined my spontaneity and writing posts in advance ruined their news value. But then I got to really thinking about it.
I have been writing professionally (meaning I get paid for articles and books) for decades. Every single one of those 300+ articles and dozens of books had a deadline. Not “a lot.” Not “most.” All of them. I should certainly be able to deal with deadlines.
Deadlines are scary. See? Really scary!
Then I went through my posts from the last year or so. Very few of them were so timely that they couldn’t have spent a few weeks in a queue waiting to be published. Those few could have either been special reports (e.g., my series of live posts from World Tea Expo last year) or just been inserted at the front of the queue, pushing everything else back.
I haven’t been really good lately at keeping up my goal of posting every week or so — I averaged one post about every 2.5 weeks in 2014 — but I have plenty of ideas. I keep a list of potential posts, and it’s gotten really long. I also really want to give my readers something to look forward to (assuming that any of you actually look forward to my ramblings).
So here’s what I’m going to do: Starting today, there will be a new post on this blog every Friday. Starting next week, they’ll be pre-scheduled to post at 9:00 a.m. Mountain time. There will be an alert on the Tea with Gary Facebook page and the Tea with Gary Twitter feed when each article posts. Those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed will see it at the same time. I’m going to watch my stats for a few months and see how it goes. If I see a significant increase in traffic on Fridays and Saturdays, or if there’s a noticeable overall increase in followers, then I’ll stick with it.
Yes, that was a shameless self-promotion. Please like the Tea with Gary page on Facebook. It would mean ever so much to me. And follow me on Twitter, too. Then you’ll always be the first to hear all of my exciting news! That really was shameless, wasn’t it? I feel bad. Really, I do.
While we’re at it, I’ve kind of slacked off on #TeakuTuesday. I’m going to start pre-scheduling those as well. Not all of them will appear on the Tea with Gary blog, though. I’ve re-purposed my old Tea with Gary Tumblr specifically for #TeakuTuesday, and (of course) they’ll be on the Twitter feed as well.
Let me know what you think. Is this exciting? Is it boring? Do you care?
Blogging on a schedule
Deadlines: An Anthology of Horror and Dark Fiction. Even the title sends shivers down my spine.
When I’m bored and not inspired enough to write something, I sometimes read silly things like blogging tips. They always seem to include the obvious, like “write interesting things” and “allow your personality to show through.” They also all seem to include, “always blog on a regular schedule.”
Somehow, this doesn’t seem to work for me. When I raised the question at the tea blogging roundtable at World Tea Expo last month, I couldn’t find a single serious tea blogger that blogged on a regular schedule. Why is that?
According to the pundits, having a regular update schedule gives your readers something to look forward to.
Perhaps so.
But what does a regular update schedule do to the quality of your blog?
I understand deadlines in the magazine and newspaper business. I’ve been on both sides of those. And books. The editor needs to know when the manuscript will be complete to schedule copyediting and cover design and all of that other fun stuff. None of that, however, applies to a blog.
In my humble opinion, a blog like this one can be badly damaged by the obsessive urge to post on a schedule.
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
— Douglas Adams
I do not presume here to speak for other bloggers. In fact, I would love to hear the opinions of other bloggers in my comments. Speaking just for myself, then, I believe that two things inspire good blog posts: inspiration and breaking news. Neither of those things is enough by itself. They both require passion and at least a smidgeon of writing skill.
Neither of those things happens on a schedule.
This gratuitous Twitter logo serves no purpose whatsoever except to remind you to follow me on Twitter. We now return you to your regularly scheduled — err, IRregularly scheduled — blog post.
I may see something new and interesting while scanning a news site, tea blog, newsletter, or even Facebook or Twitter. What would be the appropriate reaction?
(A) This is cool! I must let all of my readers know about this post haste while I’m still excited about it and it’s still news!
(B) This is cool! I must put this on my schedule of things to write about. How does three weeks from Thursday sound?
I don’t know about you, but for me writing it now produces a good blog post, and by the time three weeks from Thursday rolls around something else has caught my interest.
“I am definitely going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”
— Louis E. Boone
Or what about the flipside? It’s blog update day. My deadline is coming at me like an enraged ROUS (that’s Rodent of Unusual Size for those of you who aren’t fans of The Princess Bride) with its tail on fire. I can’t think of a bloody thing to write about. I scratch out something marginally adequate, thus making my deadline. My dear readers say, “Gary’s certainly off his game lately, isn’t he? Mayhaps we should read Robert Godden instead. He’s not boring.” I’m having a hard time seeing the win in this scenario.
I will continue, then, writing for my blogs when the spirit moves me or when I have something to write about. I really do try to get in about a post a week on this blog and two or three posts a month on my other blog. This is my sixth post this month on Tea With Gary. I think I’ll celebrate with a nice cup of pu-erh.
Mind if I close with a little bit of xkcd? Of course you don’t. Unless you don’t like four-letter words. In that case, stop reading now.
xkcd #874 by Randall Munroe. Click on the comic for the original. Then start clicking NEXT until you’ve caught up with the current one. Than go back and start at #1. I should have another blog post for you by then.
I am a 
Tea With Gary 