How to Blog a Book

Inspiring You to Build Visibility, Boost Authority and Become an Author Post by Post

Inspiring You to Build Visibility, Boost Authority and Become an Author Post by Post

  • Home
  • About
    • Vote This Blog One of Writer’s Digest’s Annual 101 Best Internet Sites for Writers
    • Resources for Nonfiction Authors and Bloggers
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service
  • The BOOK!
    • Table of Contents
    • Page One
    • NEW! Revised and Expanded–2nd Edition–of How to Blog a Book
    • How to Blog a Book (Revised and Expanded Edition) BLOG TOUR
    • Previous Virtual BookTours
  • Services
    • Blog Services
    • Coaching
      • Blog and Blog-to-Book Coaching
      • Author Coaching
      • Writing and Book Coaching
  • Courses
    • The Productive Writer Course
    • Inspired Creator Community
    • High-Performance Writer Group Coaching Program
    • Turn Your Blog Into a Book Production Machine
    • Build a Business Around Your Blog
    • How to Blog a Book Audio Course
    • How to Blog a Book eCourse
    • How to Blog a Book Audio Recording
  • Contact

February 24, 2015 by Nina Amir 9 Comments

How to Blog Faster: Tips From Six Experts

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pocket

blog fasterOne of the biggest complaints I hear from writers, authors and bloggers is this: Blogging takes too long. Sometimes writing and publishing a post can take a long time…but blogging doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. You can blog faster.

That said, some successful bloggers choose to spend more time on their posts—and with good reason. Yet, they all have ways to increase their blogging productivity and speed.

To help you increase your blogging speed—and your effectiveness and output as a blogger—I asked six seasoned bloggers for their best advice on the topic. Their responses to three basic questions provide you with insight into their writing process and useful tips.

Some of these experts take more (or less) time to write a post. Some write more (or less) frequently. Some write longer (or shorter) posts. The reasons for each choice are valid as are all the advice, tools and tricks they offer.

 

Joel-2014-headshot 300xJoel Friedlander: Prepare Well, Use Stock Photos, and Write with Markdown

 

How often do you blog, and how long are your posts?

This is an evolutionary question. As a beginning blogger, I posted an article to my blog six days a week in an attempt to get traction—and visitors—quickly. After two years, as the blog evolved, I cut my posting frequency to four times a week, then to three times a week since the six times a week schedule was quite challenging. Now, with a group of contributing writers, I only post an article of my own once a week. My posts usually run about 1,000 words.

How long does it take you to write a post and get it ready for publication (including revisions, editing, finding a photo, and design)?

This depends on preparation. I try to outline or mind map my posts, which makes it much faster and easier when it comes time to write them. I spend about 45 minutes writing a 1,000-word post, and another 20 to 30 minutes editing, doing on-page SEO and finding and preparing a photo to accompany the post.

What three things do you do, or what habits do you have, that help you cut down on your blogging time or produce your posts quickly and effectively?

  1. Without a doubt, the number one time saver when it comes to writing posts is preparation. If I have an outline, a mind map or even a list of bullet points that I want to cover, the writing will be fairly quick. Without this preparation it takes much longer
  2. I used to spend time searching photo sites like Flickr for Creative Commons-licensed images, and this could take quite a bit of time. Once my blog started producing income, I switch to stock photos, which cost about $1.00 each, and this has saved me quite a bit of time.]
  3. Last year I started using the Markdown language to help format my blog articles since I had been using a lot of time putting in HTML codes through the posts. (I don’t like or use the WordPress Visual Editor.) Markdown has saved me considerable formatting time since I can easily write and format at the same time.
Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) is an award-winning book designer, a blogger, the author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish and the recently published The Self-Publisher’s Ultimate Resource Guide. He’s been launching the careers of self-publishers since 1994 and writes TheBookDesigner.com, a popular blog on book design, book marketing and the future of the book. Joel is also the founder of the online training course, The Self-Publishing Roadmap and provides pre-designed book templates and other tools for authors at BookDesignTemplates.

 

kathleen-gage-headshot_500x750Kathleen Gage: Write When You Feel Inspired or are Most Productive

 

How often do you blog, and how long are your posts?

I try to blog a minimum of once per week. On occasion, I am on a run and will blog for days on end. My blog word count can vary, but, in general, they are 500 to 600 words long. Occasionally, when I am feeling compelled, they can exceed 1,000 words.

How long does it take you to write a post and get it ready for publication (including revisions, editing, finding a photo, and design)?

When I’m inspired, it can be as little as 30 minutes, but if I’m feeling pressure, it can take me a lot longer with stops and starts. Most of my posts are inspired by something that I want to share my perspective on, teach my readers or share insights on.

What do you do, or what habits do you have, that help you cut down on your blogging time or produce your posts quickly and effectively?

I find writing first thing in the morning is my most productive time. This is often when I am most inspired.

Kathleen Gage is on a mission. She wants to inspire you to live fully,play full out, generate great revenue and leave a lasting legacy.

Kathleen is the “no-nonsense, common sense” online marketing strategist,speaker, author, product creation specialist, and owner of Power Up For Profits. She helps entrepreneurs make money online. Her clients are driven by making a difference through their own unique voice.

As an early adopter of online marketing, Kathleen is known for cutting through the fluff. She speaks and teaches about what she believes are the core elements of a successful life: accountability, integrity, honesty, and living with passion and hope.

Kathleen believes the best way to become well known in your market is to let go of the need to be well known and simply serve and create an incredible experience for all you come in contact with.

Kathleen’s mission includes animal rescue, respect of diversity, living a healthy life in mind, body and soul and contribution to community. Connect with Kathleen on Google+.

 

Denise Wakeman at Machu PicchuDenise Wakeman: Focus on Images, Post Less and Promote More

 

How often do you blog, and how long are your posts?

When I started blogging in 2004, I posted an average of three times per week. I also was blogging on three to four different blogs. Now, I post every seven to ten days. My posts range from 500 to 1,000 words, depending on the topic and whether or not there is video and/or audio included in the posts.

How long does it take you to write a post and get it ready for publication (including revisions, editing, finding a photo, and design)?

Usually two to three hours at this point, especially because images and other forms of media are so important now for helping your content stand out. I spend time looking for tweets, images, video, Facebook posts, or other rich media I can embed in the post in order to make it rich and interactive.

What three things do you do, or what habits do you have, that help you cut down on your blogging time or produce your posts quickly and effectively?

First, I repurpose content when I can. More specifically, I always post video and audio from my live video events (Hangouts on Air). The content was created during the event, so it’s fast and easy to create a blog post to feature my guest and get more visibility.

Second, I post less often now. If I’m going to spend three to four hours on a post, then after publication I spend even more time promoting the post.

Third, when inspiration strikes, I don’t worry about an editorial calendar. I write in the moment and go with the flow of my idea, so it gets out rather than gets lost in a sea of other ideas.

Denise Wakeman is an Online Business Strategist. She is also host of the popular live video show and podcast, Adventures In Visibility, focused on helping small businesses and online entrepreneurs to optimize, leverage, and strategically use social marketing tools to gain visibility, build credibility and make more money selling their products and services.   Denise is passionate about Adventure travel and how it can inspire you to think bigger and go for what’s possible in your business and life. Connect with Denise on Google+.

Rachel-Thompson2-768x1024Rachel Thompson: Poll Readers for Topics, Share Stories an Use Plugins

 

How often do you blog, and how long are your posts?

I have two blogs—my author blog RachelintehOC.com and my business blog, BadRedheadMedia.com. I blog weekly (at the very least). I often have guests as well, and I also have staff writers. I set up an editorial calendar, so we are all clear on our topics. I often poll my social media for topics and questions, i.e., “What confuses you the most about (insert topic here)?” and write posts on that.

As for length, I find that longer posts do better, with regard to SEO as well as comments and shares. There’s plenty of evidence that longer posts (750 to 1,500 words) perform better as well, contrary to popular belief that shorter posts perform better.

How long does it take you to write a post and get it ready for publication (including revisions, editing, finding a photo, and design)?

I typically chew on an idea (aka, pre-write) for a day or so, so when I go to write the post, it takes me maybe 20 to 30 minutes, tops. I then add links, pictures, etc., and it’s done! I almost always post on Sundays (better day for comments) and then share on Mondays for #MondayBlogs, a hashtag meme I created in 2012 to share blog posts (not for book promo!) that now results in anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 tweets each week. Any blogger is welcome to join. I typically see four to five times the blog traffic on Mondays now.

What three things do you do, or what habits do you have, that help you cut down on your blogging time or produce your posts quickly and effectively?

  1. Asking my readers what they want to know helps me always have topics at the ready.
  2. Sharing personal “real-life” experiences—stories—always resonate better than graphs and charts. Sure, back up your assertions with facts, but remember the universal truths; they come easily.
  3. Use WordPress.org, and take advantage of their plug-ins. They do a lot for you and save you time so you don’t have to add the same info to every post. I does it for you. Besides, WordPress has the best themes and SEO.

Rachel Thompson is the author of newly released Broken Places and the award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed. Rachel is published and represented by Booktrope. She owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. For affordable group sessions check out Author Social Media Boot Camp, monthly sessions to help all authors! Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, bitrebels.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self-Publishers Monthly.

Not just an advocate for sexual abuse survivors, Rachel is the creator and founder of the hashtag phenomenon #MondayBlogs and the live Twitter chat, #SexAbuseChat, co-hosted with certified therapist/survivor, Bobbi Parish. Find her on Twitter at @RachelintheOC and Google+.

Head shotBarry Feldman: Be Organized and Repurpose

 

How often do you blog, and how long are your posts?

At Feldman Creative, I blog weekly. However, I’m also a professional blogger, so if you factor in the various websites I write for, I deliver two to three blog posts each week.

A short blog post for me is roughly 1,000 words, but I often write posts in the 2,000-word range. Recently, I wrote a how-to on guest blogging that ran close to 3,000.

I often say, “Don’t count characters; make your characters count.” The point being, a short post can be just as impactful as a long one. That said, search engines are rewarding the beefier pages, so if you have a lot of useful things to say on a subject, you should.

How long does it take you to write a post and get it ready for publication (including revisions, editing, finding a photo, and design)?

The time I put into a post varies, and I have never actually clocked the process, but I’m guessing four hours is a minimum. I’ve written many blog posts that I’m sure took twelve or more hours.

For me, it’s rarely a start-to-finish task that occurs in a single sitting. I stash ideas as I come up with them. At that time, I may work on headlines an outline and/or do some research. In subsequent steps, I’ll write a first draft and edit it at least once. Also, I never publish my posts immediately. I let them incubate between revs.

Then there are the processes of creating links, images, Calls to Action (CTAs), and optimizing the article for search. I’m fussy as hell. I’d like to think the best bloggers have high standards and put more time into their work.

What three things do you do, or what habits do you have, that help you cut down on your blogging time or produce your posts quickly and effectively?

I don’t produce them quickly, so I won’t be helpful giving tips for how to do so. However, I’m fairly organized and my process enables me to almost always have a post or two in the queue. Some of the things that make this possible include:

  1. I keep a very organized swipe file of content I’ve discovered and like, which I’ll cite in my posts.
  2. I have numerous posts in an idea stage waiting their turn. Generally, in the doc I’ve captured the main idea and several supporting ideas. Often, I’ll knock out some headlines and paragraphs right when the idea strikes.
  3. For all my guest posting—paid and contributed—the publisher must grant me permission to republish my writing. In other words, I own the content, so my queue is usually full and though I don’t republish guest posts soon after they first appear, I get them up eventually.
Barry Feldman, founder of Feldman Creative, is a prolific writer with 25 years of experience bringing his clients’ online presence to the next level through copywriting and content marketing creation and consulting. He writes and educates clients on online marketing on The Point and on many other sites across the web. Connect with Barry on Google+.

Frances Candid Shot 2Frances Caballo: Create a Regular Feature or Roundup

 

How often do you blog, and how long are your posts?

I blog twice a week for my own blog and write guest posts. All of my posts are at least 750 words, and sometimes longer. When I write for www.TheBookDesigner.com, I write at least 1,000 words because I know Joel Friedlander prefers more detailed posts.

How long does it take you to write a post and get it ready for publication (including revisions, editing, finding a photo, and design)?

The process is involved for me. I read the blogosphere relative to my niche quite thoroughly. When I learn about new applications or when changes in social media occur, I know I’ll want to use that information in a blog post, provided it’s relevant to Indie Authors.

Sometimes I’ll base a blog post on a hangout I listened to or something I read in a social media marketing book.

Writing takes a minimum of one hour, sometimes two to four. Then I go through the following steps:

  • Submit my post to Grammarly.com to check the grammar and syntax.
  • Create two images.
  • Upload the post to my self-hosted blog.
  • Add tags.
  • Work on my post’s SEO with the SEO by Yoast plugin.
  • Add images and text to Social Warfare, a social share plugin I use.
  • Prepare recurring tweets on SocialOomph.

In all, it can take me up to four hours to prepare each blog post. Granted, that’s a lot of time, but we’re in the era of content marketing, and I think it’s time well spent.

What do you do, or what habits do you have, that help you cut down on your blogging time or produce your posts quickly and effectively?

Once a week, I feature a Friday Roundup. I write a short social media tip and then include links to other blog posts I found during the week that I thought were important for my readers to see. This cuts my time in half.

Frances Caballo is a social media manager for writers and author of Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write, Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers. Currently, she is the Social Media Manager for the Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter and the San Francisco Writers Conference. Find her on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

What about me? I publish posts on my four blogs six to seven times per week. Three of my blogs are on a twice-per-week schedule and the other is sporadic (no schedule). I also guest post for two sites on a regular basis and write an occasional guest post for other sites as well. (Phew!)

With this in mind, you’ll understand that I have to keep my blogging time short!

A post like this might take me several hours to produce because it requires sending out emails, gathering the information and compiling it all. And, it’s long! Normally, however, my posts take between 45 minutes and 90 minutes, and I keep them to about 300 to 750 words. A fair amount of time might be spent on finding a good image to go with each post and tweaking the SEO, including the title, first paragraph and subheadings, and then adding tags and categories.

My three top time-saving tips are:

  1. Write in markdown, or mult-markdown as it is also called. As Joel mentioned, this cuts down on formatting time. Markdown is not hard to learn and takes almost no extra time once you know how to use it.
  2. Use Grammarly.com to reduce proofreading and revising time (especially if you are a sole operator). Write, revise, put your post through Grammarly’s editor (and revise as you do), then drop into WordPress, proof on screen using the preview function (once or twice), and hit “publish.”
  3. Write about what you know, what interests you and the things about which you feel passionate. This reduces the struggle to find words.

Here’s a bonus tip: Have a blog plan. Knowing what you will write about from day to day saves tons of time! A plan means you won’t ever stare at the computer screen and wonder what to write or make false starts and have to begin again. (If you need support creating a blog plan (or figuring out what to blog about), I can help!) I use monthly, quarterly and sometimes even yearly blog plans. I create them using mind maps.

What did you learn from this post? Are you taking an overly long time to write your posts? Can you shorten your blogging time? Tell me in a comment.

Photo courtesy of RTimages

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pocket

Filed Under: Writing Posts/Chapters Tagged With: Barry Feldman, blog better, blog faster, blog long, blog short, Denise Wakeman, Frances Caballo, Joel Friedlander, Kathleen Gage, Rachel Thompson

Comments

  1. Joel Friedlander says

    February 24, 2015 at 11:42 am

    Nina, this is a fabulous round-up of actionable ideas from people who are “on the front lines” of blogging every day. I’m honored to be included. Every author will find something to gain here.

  2. Marlene Cullen says

    February 24, 2015 at 2:14 pm

    I’m hitting the “Like” button. Good info here.

  3. Nina Amir says

    February 24, 2015 at 7:43 pm

    Thanks so much for your kind words, Joel, and for being part of the roundup!

  4. Nina Amir says

    February 24, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    Thank you, Marlene!

  5. Marcia Riefer Johnston says

    February 25, 2015 at 2:18 am

    Thanks, Nina, and all contributors, for the suggestions. I’m going to start a swipe file now, Barry.

  6. Barry says

    February 25, 2015 at 10:38 pm

    Oh, c’mon Marcia, you must of had a swipe file before now. Word up my friend.

  7. Nina Amir says

    February 26, 2015 at 12:12 am

    I’ve started the swipe file in Evernote. Before I just lost everything! I’ve also begun making draft posts…in WordPress or in Scrivener.

  8. thi cong op alu says

    March 28, 2015 at 9:20 am

    I feature a Friday Roundup. I write a short social media tip and then include links to other blog posts I found during the week that I thought were important for my readers to see. This cuts my time in half.

  9. Nina Amir says

    March 29, 2015 at 12:12 am

    Great tip! Thanks so much.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About Nina Amir

Nina Amir, the Inspiration to Creation Coach, inspires writers to create published products and careers as authors as well as to achieve their goals and fulfill their purpose and potential.

Read More . . .

Follow Me!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on Google+Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on LinkedInFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on SkypeFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

As Seen On:

social proof2

How to turn your blog into a book

Amazon.com
Barnesandnoble.com
IndieBound.com
WritersDigestShop.com

Create a Successful Author Website!

Book. Books and laptopPurchase a copy of my eBook!

Bestselling authors like Michael Hyatt and Joanna Penn use Scrivener and endorse this course! I tried Learn Scrivener Fast, too, and found it a quick, easy way to learn the Scrivener writing technology. Plus, you can use it to produce produce ebooks!
Click here to find out more!

250x250

bluehost

Writer's Digest: 2013 Best Writing Websites (2013)
This website has been awarded a Best Writing Website.
Sponsored by Writer's Digest, Writer's Market,
Writer's Digest University & Writer's Digest Shop.

TFOI Badge

Popular Posts

  • Are You Blogging a Book? List it here!
  • Can You Publish Blogged Material As a Kindle Ebook?
  • Darren Rowse on Book Deals and Discovery in the Blogosphere
  • 4 Ways Digital Marketing Helps You Blog A Book
  • Selling Your Ebook on Your Own Website vs. Amazon

Search

Categories

Archives

Copyright © Nina Amir 2023

»
«
Powered by Conversion Insights: Boost your online revenue.  
Are you a productive, semi-productive or unproductive writer? Take My Quiz To Find Out!
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.