When I started trying to manage three blogs, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and in desperate need to organise. I’ve learned quite a few things over the past month since starting blog #3, but still am no expert.

I decided, therefore, to ask a few people who did successfully manage multiple blogs, and ask them what their “secrets” were. In searching for people to interview, however, I found it very difficult! It seems that most people running multiple blogs tended to neglect one or more of them (I wanted someone who was actively running several successful blogs), and a few of the people I found it turns out they were running “scraping” blogs, and I really didn’t want to have anything to do with that (I wanted to talk to people endevouring to create original content like I am). A lot of people seem to be running 2-3 blogs, but more than that is more rare than I thought!

And so I wrote to Kevin, who runs four successful and active blogs. I knew him from his popular humor blog Pointless Banter, and he agreed to let me in on his own blogging techniques so I could share them with you. He writes these blogs:

Pointlessbanter.net - “There is material on there over three years old, it originally started out on MySpace. It is what got me blogging and into writing, it is a humor blog and I guess my “personal” blog. The site has been up for over two years.”

Buzznetworker.com - “It technically has been up for ten months but due to some technical problems it really didn’t get going until like six months ago. It is about using social networking websites to increase recognition for your brand, your blog, or your business.”

Jambandnews.com - “That is about three months old right now. The title is self explanatory.”

staroffenders.com - “This blog is only a couple of months old but it has done well. It is a celebrity gossip blog focused on celebs in trouble.”

When I asked him which was the most successful, he said:

Trafficwise Pointlessbanter.net has exploded over the last few months.  StarOffenders could and will easily pass it though, because of the type of content people search for.

I asked Kevin about structuring his time, and he told me:

“I used [have a method for structuring time] to but I have honestly been struggling lately with work, grad school, and maintaining four blogs. For a few of my blogs that don’t need to have “breaking news” type of stuff I try and pre-write my content for at least two weeks at a time.”

He says he tries to write Monday through Friday on all four blogs, and so I asked if he ever had trouble keeping up with it all.

“Yeah it has gotten pretty rough as of late, I am thinking about scaling back to just doing two blogs, but of course if I spend a weekend on getting caught up I could be ok. I have been continually wrestling with this.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one!  Some days I feel like I can do it all and want to start 2 MORE blogs, and other days I feel like the three I have are overwhelming, and I want to shut one or two of them down.  I get the feeling a lot of bloggers have that experience.

So I asked Kevin whether he was in it for love or money (I’m sure I phrased it more delicately though.)  To have a full perspective on his experience, it was important to understand if this was a hobby or a real attempt at commercial enterprise.  He said:

“… Buzznetworker, Jambandnews, and StarOffenders are all part of the b5 blogging network. I get paid to write those. Pointlessbanter is my baby and my number one focus, it always has been and it will be until I am done blogging. That page does make some money through ad revenue and I have started actually trying to come up with an ad strategy for it instead of just throwing up google ads.”

Me: “What made you want to start so many? Is it a plan for making money online, or do you just have a lot of topics you wanted to cover?” Answer:

“Last year I was working from home as a consultant while going to school, so I had a little more time on my hands. I thought blogging would be a good way to add to my income. When I left to go to grad school I really thought about getting up to 8 blogs and using the money I made from that and my student loans to pay the bills. But I ended up landing a job as a new media manager for a local company, which kind of put a wrench in everything.

“These are all topics that I really enjoy and really like to talk about. The money, while nice, isn’t enough to get me out of bed and force me to blog in the morning. With my personal page I really couldn’t tackle the social networking thing or the music thing because it wouldn’t fit in with my style or what I talk about. These blogs were a good way for me to change things up a bit.”

I’ve considered giving up at least one of my blogs before, so I wondered if Kevin had ever been tempted to simplify as well.  I asked, “Do you have any blogs you’ve given up on, or do you nurture each one if it starts slowing down?”

“Right now I am thinking about asking them to find another writer for staroffenders and jambandnews. For a celebrity gossip blog to work you need to post 5 short stories a day and I just don’t have it in me right now. They all have a certain level of success already so I am handing them off in good health.”

Conclusions:

What I  found most interesting about this conversation was that it reinforced my own experiences with blogging.  I like it, I have had some success, but at the same time it’s a struggle not to give up, especially when life gets busy.

I’ve also discovered some specific techniques for managing my own time, which I’ll share with you in an upcoming post.  It really helps to organise, but knowing you need to organise and knowing where to start are two different things.  Details coming soon!

A huge, special thanks to Kevin for sharing his thoughts on running multiple blogs.  With all that work he has going, I’m amazed he had the time.  Thanks! 

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