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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All bloggers experience some degree of writer’s block from time to time. It ain’t easy coming up with something new every single day. It can be anything from a serious case of the blahs which keeps you from posting at all, to a mild feeling of “Oh crap, what can I possibly write about today” which leaves you fumbling around, posting irrelevant stuff, recycling memes or, in a panic, posting about what you bought at the store that day. Ugh.

Blog writing is like all professional writing. To do it effectively, you must plan ahead. I can hear a lot of you saying already, “But I’m not a professional. This is just a fun hobby for me.” If you want readers beyond your family and personal friends, you must approach it like a professional. There are millions of blogs out there. Good writing and fresh ideas are the difference between gaining a subscriber, and someone just moving on.

One thing I will say… planning ahead is much easier to do for a blog like this than for my humor blog , because humor requires some degree of spontenaity, at least in my case. However, I do have some tips for that type of blog too, so never fear!

So, how can you keep fresh ideas coming?

1. Read other blogs in your genre. This keeps you current and lets you know what others are talking about. But a word of warning here: There is a danger of just recycling other’s ideas, or hashing over something that has been done and redone, so when you read others blogs, do it with a mind to sparking your imagination, not to just copying what has already been said. Unoriginal thought drives readers away. And when I say “other blogs”, I should say “A Huge-Lotta Other Blogs“. Don’t confine yourself to the 10 people on your own blogroll. Be constantly on the lookout for new faces and new sources.
2. Subscribe to a list of news sources that suit your niche so you can have a constant flow of new ideas coming into your inbox/reader/etc. For example I subscribe to News of the Weird , Offbeat News, CNN’s Offbeat section, and quite a few others. I may or may not directly quote one of the articles, but my Bitter Women blog is based mostly around “people are so strange” type of commentaries, or just laughing at the world in general. So news sources that provide that type of material keep the juices flowing! For this blog, I keep in touch with online media, technology trends (such as what’s new with Google, etc), online marketing, etc. Again I may not quote them directly, but I often find something that sparks my interest. When I do, I save it to my favourites list, or star it in my Google Reader. So on days when I am not feeling inspired, I have a folder to go through of ideas.
3. Google Trends - I use this sometimes if I want to see what people out there across the internet are writing about. You don’t want to just be a follower, however, if you see what people are talking about right now, you can often avoid tromping through overused ideas that have been written about time and again for years.
4. Keep a notebook by your keyboard, and even carry it with you. I sometimes come up with the best ideas when I’m not sitting here trying. And often real-life conversations with other people inspire me more than what I can read online. But like dreams, inspiration can fade until I’m left feeling, “I had a great idea yesterday, but I can’t remember what it was!” (I hate it when that happens.)
5. Google Blogsearch - This tool can be used both for finding new blog posts on any topic, therefore leading you to new sources of ideas/friends, but it can also help show you if an idea you do have is overdone. I think any topic can be done well and provide new insight, but you cannot know if you’re putting a new slant on things if you don’t know what’s already been done.
6. Ideas from outside the blogosphere. This is important to staying fresh. For example, if you blog about blogging, then take ideas from websites about writing or marketing or internet trends that don’t have a direct link to blogs. If you blog about celebrities, look at fashion trends, hot vacation spots, multi-million dollar homes, etc, so that you aren’t just spitting out the same old Britney news and showing the exact same YouTube footage as everyone else. Sure, blog about the topical stuff, but if your blog is just a clone of a thousand others, why should people subscribe to YOU instead of someone else?
7. User comments/questions both on your blog AND on related blogs can be a great source of ideas!

These are the ideas that keep me going every day… I hope they help you too! If you have some of your own, let me know and I’ll post them!

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When people start their first blog, they read. A lot. Blogs, websites, advice, news… looking for tips and inspiration. This is one habit the newbie blogger should strive to maintain.

Read More Than You Write. This is the blogging equivalent of the old saying “Listen more than you talk.” My granny used to say “This is why God gave you two ears, but one mouth.”

Read More Than You Write. More blogs. More articles. More comments. Visit others. Add to the community.

Do this, and you will not regret it.

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If I could get even a few people to stick to this rule, I will have done the blogosphere a huge favor. In fact, do us all a favor and spread the word!

• Don’t blog with excuses about why you haven’t been blogging.
• Don’t blog with apologies for not writing more.
• Don’t blog about writer’s block.

It isn’t interesting.

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