Image courtesy keso via Flickr
We have one of the best buddies a blogger could ask for in Sandy @ You've GOTTA Read This! She stops by to visit most every day, entertains and informs us with her personal and book related posts, sends us kind tokens in the mail and is always good for a Bumble Town Chat (P.S. - please see updated note about tonight's chat in the sidebar to the right) or e-mail conversation. But more than anything from a blogging support perspective, she is a loyal Monday Movie Meme participant and one of our original and enthusiastic participants. What does any of this have to do with a blogging tip? Let me explain.
Sandy is taking a little trip next month to visit family overseas and didn't want to miss out on those beloved movie posts. So she kindly came up with topics for us to use while she is away so that she could write her posts for them in advance and schedule them for while she is away. Her prepared topics will make life easy for us for a few weeks, and will give her fun posts of her own choosing to prepare and run while she is gone, keeping her blog from becoming dormant.
Sandy is the advance posting Queen. This wonder woman writes her book reviews well in advance and gets stressed out if she does not have a few weeks worth of posts all ready to go in the hopper. I don't know how she does it to be honest. I have a hard enough time writing a post the night I plan to post it, much less writing chunks of them at a time in advance. I do manage to write a couple here and there in advance for my paid restaurant reviews at the UpTake Restaurants Blog. But even that is a challenge to motivate and coordinate with my schedule.
I think that having a reserve of posts pre-written to draw from would be quite the luxury. It would be wonderful to kick back and not have to write something most every evening either for here, UpTake or Quirky Girls Read. But then again, having something to write every day keeps the creative juices flowing. Advance posting and scheduling can be a great way to stay organized, freeing up your time to visit other bloggers, work on that blog design, learn something or catch up on your other favorite hobby (such as quality time with my DVR). It is something worth working towards.
I'm good with plotting ideas for posts in advance. I'm just too lazy or stubborn to actually write clusters of them in advance. I would love to hear from you about your posting techniques and thoughts on advance writing and scheduling.
11 comments:
I could never hope to compare myself with the talent and energy of Sandy, but I do also believe in scheduling posts in advance. I do this so I don't have to be anxious when I have blocks, or can't fit two words together, or go on trips (we go on little trips often), or don't read for whatever reason, and/or have nothing whatsoever to say about anything. It makes things a little weird however, because very often I'll see a post come due and think, "*I* read *THAT*?!!!
I feel passion toward my posts - which is often why I don't post. Nothing there. Then, somethng will begin to hum and then before you know it, I'm off and running on a new idea. Usually completely different than what I was thinking.
So, what does that make me/
Only on occasion am I able to churn out a few posts at a time. I have to admit it does feel blissful to have posts scheduled for the week. It makes me feel quite accomplished too. But so far I am unable to do this regularly.
I only ever scheduled posts once. I planned three of them for the same week that we would be out-of-state on vacation. A Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
They had the lowest number of comments ever, and I never did it again.
That is why I don't like putting up posts so close together. When people come to visit your blog, they almost always ONLY read your most recent post and not the others before it that they haven't seen yet.
At any rate, I'm more the type to just write the post and hit the publish button.
Well thanks for those kind words! You know I love you guys, and I would feel bad if I weren't able to do the Monday Movie Meme for three weeks! Is pre-scheduling a good thing? For me it is almost by necessity. It does help me manage my "stress" (but what the hell is up with that...I don't get paid!) of wanting to publish daily. I also get flak here at home if I am scrambling each evening on the computer, because my husband and kids want my attention. Pre-scheduling allows me to blog AND do everything I do.
I have rarely used scheduled posts in the past. Usually just when I was going to be away for several days - but most often I just let you all wonder where I went. Or let myself think you're wondering where I went when actually no one noticed.... whatever.
However, I am currently doing a series on turning 50. I wrote one giant post and then set it up to publish in six segments. It was one of those things that I had to write all at once so I could keep moving things around - but it was too much to expect anyone to read in one sitting. Kind of like this comment. :)
wow--I'm impressed!!! I have scheduled some posts when I've gone on vacation. But most of the time I just put up a picture and leave it while I'm gone.
I try to write my scheduled reviews for book tours in advance. But when I'm away or too busy, I feel as though it's not right to schedule posts because I won't be able to respond to comments.
Sometimes I start my reviews early, so I can log in and jot thoughts down. Sometimes I do random thought posts, wait, re-read and then post them when I feel like. i don't do too many of those though. I have trouble coming up with ideas I guess ;)
I sometimes write posts in advance and schedule them for later publication. One thing I have started doing is jotting ideas in a notebook as they come up so I have something to write about when I can actually sit down and write. I need to get better about that, though. Maybe then I could write more posts in advance!
I only really do advance posting if I am on vacation. And then I end up at the lodge or at a Starbucks catching up with the comments and such just so I don't miss anything. I wish I could just post ahead and forget about it. Alas, I cannot.
I typically write about my life and what is happening right now, so posting ahead wouldn't really work for me.
I only pre-write posts before a week or two vacation. I had great hopes of having 3 months of quizzes done before Gage arrived last year, but he came early and I didn't have any done, LOL.. Best laid plans...
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