Comments on: Why my blogging has sucked lately :)

By: Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:49:34 +0000

Thank you sir! Solid advice.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:53:10 +0000

I don't think you should pay any attention to frequency when you maintain a blog as a labor of love and not a main source of income. Essentially, you should forget about everyone visiting your site and pretend you only have RSS subscribers. Every time you publish something, you are knocking on their door and saying “Hey, I wrote something!” If you're my friend and you rarely knock on my door, I'm totally cool with that. Or conversely, if you knock and have something interesting to say, I'm also cool with that. But the worst thing is a lot of knocking without a lot of interesting stuff to say. Just write when you feel like it… don't worry about slowing down.

By: desmondpieri

desmondpieri — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:40:03 +0000

Andrew, when I started blogging, the consensus of advice was two things: 1. shorter is better. 2. Only blog when you have something of interest to say. I post a couple of times a month. And I try to keep my posts under 400 words. That said, my “most liked” post — about the first job I did as president of a turn around company was I cleaned the company kitchen — is a bit over 600 words.

By: rickholman

rickholman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:38:56 +0000

Andrew: I have read lots of blogs by various people. With most, after a couple of weeks, they begin to repeat themselves. Your blogs are thoughtful, make me think and I check every day to see if there is something new. I recognize that it takes a lot of work to think this through, and then write these. One way you might look at it, is to go back through your blogs and see if there is an overall pattern that you could use to pull together a book or overall project that goes to the next level (the opposite of Twitter ). Anyway, I enjoy readying your blogs. Rick

By: jasoncrawford

jasoncrawford — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:37:49 +0000

Glad to hear you'll be blogging again. I definitely like the idea of shorter posts more frequently. My preferred format is at most ~800 words, at most once a day.

By: Scott Edward Walker

Scott Edward Walker — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:24:08 +0000

Hey Andrew – Your post really struck a chord. I’m a corporate attorney, and I just started blogging a couple of months ago. Indeed, as you point out: “Getting deeper and narrower results in boring blog posts” (see, e.g., my post “SEC Form D and Related Securities Law Issues: Q&A for Entrepreneurs” here: http://bit.ly/3lWoEj). Moreover, as you also aptly point out: “Long posts are hard (and get harder over time).” The “SEC Form D” post took me two days to research and write; other posts have taken longer.

I’m trying to do two things now to keep things interesting: (i) I am incorporating some video posts (see, e.g., “Five Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make in Dealmaking” here: http://bit.ly/10eiiN); and (ii) I am doing what you suggested – “comment[ing] on something in the news” – like I did with my recent post: “TechCrunch Gets It Wrong Re TweetPhoto CEO” here: http://bit.ly/1ipyed. Both seem to be helping based on my analytics.

I hope the foregoing is helpful. Take care, Scott

By: Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:07:15 +0000

It's not just stealth mode – even if I were completely out there with what I've been working on, you wouldn't want to read about it every day What I do agree with though is that going deep with a company concept creates a weird little vacuum that makes it harder to hear about (and blog) normal stuff.

By: Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:05:44 +0000

I do have lots of half-written drafts That's part of the fun. I'm not sure that what I'm facing is really a software or technology problem though…

By: Gabe

Gabe — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:50:55 +0000

Just a theory – obviously, I can't see inside your head:), but perhaps the reason why you perceive a decline in the frequency and quality of your blog posts is that you seem to have been operating in stealth mode for quite a while. And operating in stealth mode kind of militates against the kind of well-ventilated environment that would be conducive to blogging . No argument here one way or the other as to whether operating in stealth mode is good or bad! I'm just saying that I could see how it might affect one's blogging.

By: john ratcliffe-lee

john ratcliffe-lee — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:12:41 +0000

Sounds like what you really need is a change in pace with the software you're using. Do you have a lot of drafts hanging around? Half-written thoughts? I had the same problem. My passion for blogging faded a bit and what I realized was WordPress, while great software, was the culprit.

Seriously try something like Tumblr (what my blog sits on) for a bit and you'll probably notice the change you're looking for. Too many people accept the major software choices as norm and don't invest enough attention to the design and focus of the software they're using.

By: Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas Lovell — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:11:06 +0000

Would be good to see you blogging more, Andrew, I love your stuff.

But I disagree that long blog posts are harder. The challenge is to take one idea and distil it down into its basics. I find it easier to make a long rambling post than to to hone it down. But in 11 months of blogging, I have got much better. A good (IMHO, of course) post takes me about an hour and a half these days, down from a full day when I started.

So I guess I'm saying that to get back to blogging, perhaps you should consider the following formula:

Have one thing you want to say. Say it. Stop.