RSS FeedsHow To Avoid Blogging Burnout
Dec 26, 2006
A burnout is kind of an emotional, and sometimes physical fatigue, and when you work on your own, whether it’s blogging or some other work, there is a greater chance of falling into the abyss of burnout. Here I’ll talk about how to avoid burnout related to blogging.
Blogging is a lonely activity, especially when you’ve just started. You don’t know other bloggers and they don’t know you. Day after day you post great posts (at least you think they are great) and your stationery traffic stats mock at you and your effort. In various forums you feel like a stranger. No other blog or website links to you, no one links to your posts. Sometimes you think as if the online world doesn’t give a damn whether you exist or not, and your pain gets amplified when you see there is so much bonhomie among bloggers who have been here for a long time, or who, by some way or the other, have become known in the blogging circles. You spend hours formulating your posts: researching them, proof-reading them, editing them and re-editing them, and after posting them they just segue into the oblivion of nothingness. You feel like giving up. You think blogging is not your cup of tea or you are not cut out for this, or worse, you are generally not that smart.
These are the signs of blogging burnout. And if you think you’re alone, well, you are not.
Every known blogger was unknown one day, if you exclude celebrity bloggers or people who had already made a mark in their field (and to make that mark they must have fought their own battles). Blogging burnout is not something to feel ashamed of, and we all go through it one time or another. Here I’ll try to list a few things you can keep in mind in order to avoid such burnouts.
Don’t think you are alone
According to Technorati, 1,75,000 blogs are being created everyday. Even if 1% of these bloggers are making a serious attempt at blogging, you have 1,750 bloggers on the same boat as you are, on a single day. And even among these, if 5% are planning to take a long shot, as you are, you have about 87 bloggers making the similar attempts. So if you’ve been blogging, say, for a month, you’ve got with you 2,610 bloggers sharing the similar struggle. So don’t think you are alone.
Give at least 7, dedicated months to your blog
People have been blogging for years. Take for instance Om Malik; he has been blogging for 5 years and now he is one of the top bloggers. I’m not saying every blogger has to struggle to make a name in the blogsphere but people who get 100s, or even 1000s of visitors from day one, they are already known in their respective field. Take for instance Danny Sullivan’s search engine blog Search Engine Land. I’m sure 1000s of people were eagerly waiting for his first post when he declared a few months ago that he’d be creating a new blog. But if you are starting everything from scratch, give your blog at least 7 months of quality blogging. Don’t think about your traffic stats, don’t worry about how many people leave or don’t leave comments on your blog, don’t fret about how many people respond to your comments on other blogs. Keep posting quality, relevant posts on your blog, and keep interacting in other forums. Just shun it from your mind that you’re going to think about success or failure before at least 7 months.
People take time to respond
For two months now I’ve been urging my family members and a few relatives to participate in a group-blogging effort. Although now Google’s Blogger has it too, I created a blog on Vox because it allows you to decide who reads your posts. So you can make some posts publicly accessible, and some accessible to only family and friends. Since my relatives are scattered all over the world and we’re growing apart with every passing year, I thought creating a group of private blogs would encourage everybody to post the latest that’s happening in their lives and then the others can leave comments or write posts on their own blogs. I sent email invitations to at least 10 people in the family. Only my wife responded by creating a blank blog (she runs a blog that gets more traffic than my blog). So far I’m the only one who regularly posts on my blog. And I think I’m the only one who reads my posts. Now, they are my family.
If they are slow to respond to something I find interesting and useful, think about people who don’t even know you. Don’t feel disheartened if people don’t respond to you or simply ignore you. Welcoming strangers is a bit difficult and we live in a world that hardly makes it comfortable for strangers. You have to make your place. You have to stick around for a long time and you have to keep trying until people start noticing you. Don’t want to try long enough? Well, too bad. Someone else will do it. The point is, it takes time for people to feel comfortable about you. And not all the time you can come up with crowd-pulling posts (not even the so-called A-list bloggers write well consistently). But there is a greater chance of writing something great if you keep trying. Give people some time, and give them a few posts that make them notice/remember you.
Don’t just do it for money
We all want to make good money, and there is nothing wrong in it. The problem is, some people start blogging after reading how some bloggers are purchasing new cars and paying off their mortgages with their blog-money. Blogging is more of a passionate activity. Money is just a bi-product of that effort. There should be a genuine desire to share your wisdom with others; you should really feel like reaching out to people and solving their problems, or at least sharing their concerns and interests. Unless you touch people with your posts, unless your voice becomes their articulation, you cannot expect to achieve much. If you’re always worrying about money you won’t be able to focus on improving the quality of your blog. So please don’t start blogging for the sake of earning if you don’t have some other means of earning. Don’t make blogging your full-time occupation if you don’t have steady income or if you don’t have the funds to survive for at least more than a year. I think two to three hours everyday is enough if you really want to take a shot at serious blogging. I spend around two hours everyday formulating posts, digging out interesting links and reading posts on other blogs. I spend the remaining time completing content writing and copywriting assignments for my clients. I’d like to spend more time but we have a small daughter and often I have to take care of her while my wife is busy doing something else. Although I take my blogging very seriously, I don’t plan to indulge in it at the cost of my primary occupation and my family.
Read a lot
Lots of blogging burnout happens because after a while we have nothing to write about. After all there are only finite things to talk about a skill, an art, or a hobby. Even in a few weeks you can run out of topics. But you know what? A good thing about the Internet is that you may come across hundreds of bloggers writing about the same things you like to write about. Subscribe to as many RSS feeds as possible. This usually feeds you with lots of writing ideas, and if nothing else, you can always link to them with your thoughts sprinkled around them. Outbound links also wins you new acquaintances and friends because the other bloggers like being linked to. Reading others’ blogs also gives you a different perspective. Many bloggers write about their own struggles and hindrances and this may make your problems very small.
Maintain an “ideas” file
Your plans keep you charged up. Maintain a topic-list in a separate file. You can even randomly save other links for future writing ideas. Even known well-established writers, journalists and bloggers maintain an “ideas” file. This way you don’t feel bad when you can’t think of anything to write about. You can always refer to your “ideas” file and rekindle your blogging muse.
If possible, collaborate with newbie bloggers and even help them
There is no need to always lurk in the shadows of more known bloggers. Find bloggers who are struggling just like you. Think up of ways how you can collaborate and contribute towards each others’ blogging efforts. Promote the newbie bloggers’ links on your blog, and if their posts are worth linking to, link to them with greater prominence. Even when you interact on famous blogs, try commenting together so that you can respond to each others’ posts.
Keep honing your writing skills
If the primary content of your blog is your writing, then you better be good at it. This solves two things: it takes less effort for you to write great, expressive posts, and you show respect to your readers by using the right language. Don’t pay heed to people who say you can be really casual while blogging. You can be casual about the personality of what you say, but please don’t be casual about your grammar, spellings and punctuation. This really puts people off.
In the end…
Love your blog
Love your blog and feel proud of it. Just because not many people are aware of your blog it doesn’t mean you are not a better blogger or the more famous bloggers are better bloggers than you are. It’s just a matter of time. Feel proud of your blog and you’ll never experience blogging burnout. Please take care I’m talking about pride, and not vanity.
Do I suffer from blogging burnouts? Sure I do. Multiple times. But if I tell you sincerely, although I have been associated with blogging for more than three years, I haven’t been faithful to it for even two months at a stretch. This time I’m going to be. I’ve been now seriously blogging for a month and a half, and for many months I’m not going to bother about how many people read my posts. I’ll just focus upon writing decent posts.
Technorati Tags: blogging tips, blogging better, successful blogging, blog success, better blogging, good blog
Posted by Amrit | Tags: Blog Publishing, Blogging Tips
Add to: Digg | Del.icio.us | Yahoo! | Netvouz | BlinkList | Furl
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:31 pm
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm