If you’ve been blogging for any amount of time at all, you realize blogging is a pretty unlucrative endeavor for the first couple of years. Most of us blog because we love to write and interact with others. When we start to think about monetary returns, that’s when I suspect many folks start throwing in the towel.
Despite a strong proclamation that “You Can’t Blog Full-Time,” we all know there are highly successful full-time bloggers in our midst. After getting over the initial hump, you realize that earning some shekels is a possibility so you figure why not try and earn more. If traffic grows strong enough, you might even be able to bid the day job adieu one day.
When I quit my job, I gave myself a fun goal of earning $200,000 working no more than four hours a day by December, 2015. What’s the point of being retired and having a steady passive income stream if I’ve got to work to the point where it feels like work, right? I don’t feel writing posts such as this one and chatting with friends over social media is work. I can happily write for three to four hours a day, everyday until my fingers fall off.
Unfortunately, I discovered during my retirement that I’m failing at limiting my writing time. Instead of reading and writing from around 7:30am to 10:30am and then spending another hour checking e-mails for the rest of the day, I noticed myself getting up at 5:30am and still writing until 10:30am! There still is no need for an alarm clock, but I think my body is naturally feeling the pressure to get up earlier to do more since I’ve imposed this arbitrary time limit.
I want to spend more time writing thicker, juicer content for my readers. The average length of my posts has gone from 750-850 to 1,300-1,700 as a result. I no longer had an excuse not to write more. The next big reason for writing more is that I’d like to do well in search in order to create a perpetuity of traffic for the long term. Passive traffic/income is great, but it takes a tremendous amount of initial effort.
THE DEMORALIZING CONVERSATION
“Sam, you’re doing it all wrong,” said my freelance writing friend. “It takes me sometimes 15 minutes to no more than 30 minutes to write and edit an article for a client. I used to make $25 a post, but now I regularly command $50-$100 a post. I work on average 25 hours a week and make over $125,000 in revenue a year!”
Here I am, spending hours and hours on one post in order to afford instant ramen noodles and powdered Gatorade (very addicting so be careful) and here she is churning out posts like a champ and crushing it. How sad.
My other thoughts were:
Damn, she must be brilliant to be able to write a full length post in under 30 minutes. What the hell is wrong with me?
Hmmm, how good can a post be if it takes under 30 minutes? It sometimes takes me 10 minutes just to find the right picture I took to go with the post!
Maybe I’ve got it backwards and thick content is out, and thin content is actually in.
That’s it. I’m going to treat myself to some some instant Udon noodles instead of just ramen noodles. I deserve it.
I took a look at some samples of my friend’s posts and they were all about 500 words long. They weren’t very original nor were they that entertaining, but who cares? She had a huge book of clients willing to pay her $50-$100 a post for 30 minutes of work.
Stepping To The Edge
What got me demoralized was spending a little over 10 hours writing, “Recommended Net Worth Allocation By Age And Work Experience.” Financial Samurai readers had a great discussion on the proper asset allocation of stocks and bonds by age the month before, and I wanted to wrap up the theme given stocks and bonds are generally only a portion of one’s net worth. What resulted was an arduous attempt that almost knocked me out for the count.
I literally made over 50 draft revisions before publishing the post. The three charts highlighting the “Base Case, New Life Case, And Self Belief Framework” for asset allocation took about three hours alone to create because I kept adjusting the percentage figures to account for various life scenarios. They had to be realistic and multi-variable. When you create your own charts, it’s also very easy to make mistakes.
When all was said and done, the “Recommended Net Worth Allocation” post ended up being 2,818 words long. As soon as I pressed publish, I didn’t want to have anything to do with blogging for at least several days. I scheduled some previously written posts and decided to just go snowboarding up in Tahoe and relax in the hot tub for the week instead.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt blogging burn out. My biggest worry before quitting my job was the fear I would no longer enjoy blogging once it became a bigger focus in my life. My 2,818 word post, which isn’t even my longest post ever, almost made me quit again. I had used up all the mental power I had to create those darn charts. Thankfully, the community seems to appreciate the post with comments reaching around 100. 100 comments (30% of them my own) should be considered a success. The problem is, I’ve got around 40 posts that have already surpassed this mark so the novelty has worn off long ago. Perpetual investments eventually slow down and we must continue to keep on publishing.
It’s too early to tell whether the post I spent so much of my life on will do well. I hope Google believes it is the most comprehensive net worth allocation post on the web, but one can never tell. The web is inundated with thin content from About and eHow that hogs up the top spaces in search. I’ve also got to compete with freelancing machines. I’m trying to do my best to battle, but it’s a long, long slog.
THE IDEAL AMOUNT OF TIME TO SPEND WRITING A POST
I’ve come to the conclusion that the sweet spot for maximum return on writing effort is somewhere around two to three hours per post. Three hours should be enough time to write at least a 1,000 word post, find a pertinent image, and edit the post so that it’s worthy of most publications on the web. It’s when you start reinventing the wheel or coming up with your own ideas where the time starts racking up.
Two to three hours per post is also short enough so that the electric burn out fence stays out of reach. Bake in another one hour for miscellaneous online activities and you’re set at four hours a day total. With no more than four hours spent a day blogging, one can spend the rest of the day with their family, playing sports, working on different hobbies, seeing friends, and traveling. In fact, I find it challenging to do anything for more than four hours consecutively.
Can you spend more than 3-4 hours doing any of these things without starting to feel a little tired?
* Working out.
* Watching a baby.
* Watching a movie.
* Competing in a basketball, football, soccer, tennis, swimming, snowboarding and running.
* Talking.
* Reading.
* Eating.
* Listening to live music.
* Exploring a new city.
* Relaxing in a hot tub.
* Getting a massage.
etc.
Everybody knows that longevity is one of the most important variables to entrepreneurial success. If each one of us is able to publish three to five 1,000+ posts a week for five straight years, I’m pretty sure most of us will achieve blogging glory!
I’m curious to know what the average amount of time you spend writing a post? When were the times, if ever, that you spent so much time on a post that spending any more time writing would make you sick? What do you think the ideal time is to write a post and to blog in general a day? I’d love to one just blog from my vacation property in Squaw, Lake Tahoe and not care about anything.
START A MONEY MAKING BLOG
It’s been around seven years since I started Financial Samurai and Yakezie and I’m actually earning a good passive and active income stream online now. The online income stream has allowed me to pursue other more interesting things, such as consulting for various financial tech startups, traveling around the world, and spending more time with family.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. You never know where the journey will take you in 2015 and beyond!
Regards,
Sam
Photo: Mr. Meerkat Just Chilling, Sam, 2015.
I try to spend no more than three hours on a post but that’s hard for me. I spent probably close to five six hours on my latest post about how to take an incredible and super cheap safari. Travel related posts always take me longer because I have to find a lot of pictures from my even larger photo library. But they are a lot of fun because they are like journal entries and I want to write down as much as I can remember now so I can reflect later.
I think it’s pretty obvious when people only spend 30 min or less on a post. I don’t bother reading articles like that because I find them super dry and impersonal.
It’s pretty obvious to me when someone spends a short time on a post as well. HOWEVER, given there are a lot of clients who are willing to pay for thin copy, then the posts must be good enough. If they weren’t, they’d be gone.
Google says they want more detailed content, but thin content still dominates the front page written by unknown freelancers. Therefore, if we want to improve, we’ve got to observe what’s working and accept reality.
Sam, most of my posts take anywhere from 4 to 8+ hours, except for weekly lineups etc. I often work on a few posts at the same time. There is just so much research that goes into investing topics.
I find the posts that took me longer to write get more traction. My recent post on the Canadian mining sector, for my Dividend Pig blog probably took 10+ hours – but it also got mentioned in the Daily Crux. That traffic paid off big-time.
I know I could churn out quick and easy 500 word posts, and sometimes I do. But there are plenty of other blogs doing that, and sponsored posts is not may main cup of tea, so why bother?
Cheers
Avrom
Avrom, how often do you post a week? 10 hours is my limit… I will most definitely burn out if I did 5, 10 hour posts in a row.
Hey Sam,
I try for 2 to 3 per week on the Dividend Ninja – at least one big one per week. One of those is usually a weekly lineup. Some posts are just 2 or 4 hours, but the ones that get noticed take a lot of time, 8+. I tend to research and work on multiple posts at the same time. I believe in my niche, dividend investing, extra time is worth it. ;)
Cheers
PS See you at FinCon13 :)
This hit home when you mentioned how long it takes you to find the right picture. I have done the exact same thing.
Like the Dividend Ninja, I write on investment topics so they take a good amount of time. When people are using my information to help them invest, I like to make sure it’s clearly written and free of errors.
Actually, my better posts are the ones that take me about an hour to write. When I’m just not feeling the topic, then the words come much less naturally and posts can take 2 hours or longer. Posts that exceed 1000 words probably take about 50% longer on average than the posts I’ve been writing since the challenge which come in around 600-800 words.
Of course, this is just counting the time spent actually writing the post instead of wasting time. My usual timeline seems to be something like:
TITLE
First 1-2 paragraphs
500 words in one burst
Take care of the meta information, add related posts, image, etc.
Apparently, Triangle brackets were a bad idea. Let me try that again:
TITLE
(spend 30 minutes checking Facebook, Yakezie, etc.)
First 1-2 paragraphs
(spend an hour on a completely unrelated project that popped into my head)
500 words in one burst
(spend 30 minutes on more quadrant 4 tasks)
Take care of the meta information, add related posts, image, etc.
I’d work on getting that word count to double and see how things go for the next three months. Let us know the results!
Like Edward, I write inspired posts quite quickly, then I let them sit for a day and review the next day, or later with fresh eyes. I can see the difference between a post I really feel and a topic I want to cover but am not very comfortable with, it takes more time to write down. If it really doesn’t come out, I leave the draft indefinitely, to avoid a complete block.
Makes sense. I don’t have many drafts b/c if I start a post, I am hell bent on finishing it within that sit down, no matter what. How often are you posting a week nowadays?
I do exactly what Pauline does. That’s how I work best!
2-3 hours per post is about right for me. I spent a lot of that time researching the topic too so it’s not all just pounding the keyboard. Today, I published a post about carrying several mortgages. Inspired by your example, the post is about 1,500 words long. That’s one of my longer post and I will try to write beefier posts as often as I can. That one took about 3 hours, but it wasn’t too bad because I’m familiar with the subject.
Some posts took 3 hours and I could only get 500 words…
I would like to spend more time rewriting and perfecting the articles, but I don’t have time for that.
Sounds good. There’s a good chance your 1,500 word post is going to do better than your previous 750 word posts on the subject. 3 hours is not bad at all for a 1,500 word, all edited post. That’s what I’m shooting for on a consistent basis for the rest of the year.
Wow Sam, you are a very inspiring individual. I love your goal for making $200,000, that is just insane to me. :) I’m still learning how to do this blogging thing and right now my posts take me anywhere between 30-60 minutes to write. I spend the bulk of my time right now trying to network with other bloggers.
Just a fun goal, so why not. Give it 3 years and 600, 1,000+ word posts later and I think you won’t find it too insane!
Sometimes, I get an idea and it flows perfectly and it is done in roughly 2 hours. Other times I struggle for the idea and the writing may go either way. On average, I usually write about 2-3 hours per article. I don’t count all the reading that may give me ideas as part of the 2-3 hours though.
I’d say 3 hours is about average for me to crank out a post. If I’m really feeling the topic sometimes I can write 1500 words in 3 hours. Other times it takes me that amount of time for a 700 word post.
Great timing with this post, Sam. I’ve been feeling a little blogging burnout myself over the past few weeks. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve published nothing after scrapping an idea or half written post over the past month or so.
Hope you don’t burn out! Try writing ahead, queuing some posts, and getting some guest posts if you’re feeling the burn.
I honestly have a problem answering this question. Usually the writing itself doesn’t take me that long; but my most interesting posts take days thinking about the idea, letting it germinate, working out the links and making it so neat and passionate that it is like dancing the tango. I really dislike disco-dancing type writing of any kind (not only blogging). An example of such post is Money for All Seasons – and I did win Tour de Personal Finance last year with it.
On the other hand, I wrote ‘SOS debt management: is debt consolidation worth it?’ in about 40 minutes and got to the finals of the Personal Finance Olympics on GoBankingRate with it (in the debt management category).
So my experience: you never know! But generally good writing takes a long time.
You never know is right. Better to try than not try. All else being equal, I think longer is better, but up to a point. That 1,500-2,000 word mark is optimum imo. But then again, it depends on the writer.
My better posts take me longer, unless it’s a topic I’ve researched beforehand – then I don’t count that time. However, being crunched for time I’ve seen my posts go from 600 words + to under 400. The only caveat is that I know there are busy folks out there that don’t have time to read a long post, so I can only hope my short posts are helpful.
“a pretty unlucrative endeavor for the first couple of years. ” – Amen to that. I think DQYDJ made me between $3 and $5.50 an hour in 2012. Glad I’ve got a day job, ha.
You’ve got to keep producing that fine wine though! It’s our collective duty to knock those eHow articles off the top of the ranks, for the good of humanity. Every time you ask Google “how do I ___?” and click a pictureless eHow article a kitten dies. In fact, this is how I imagine eHow articles would be perceived if there were pictures.
Ha! So that is how you draw an owl! Nice.
Ha, ha. Well below minimum wage for me as well.
Sam, this article is so perfectly timed for me. I was feeling a bit discouraged because I spent 3.5 hours writing “18 Ways to Simplify Your Finances” on Sunday with lots of personal examples, and got one measley comment. Then this morning, I dashed off a quick, 30-minute post for a book giveaway and got ten comments in two hours. Thanks for the reminder that “Most of us blog because we love to write and interact with others.” My bottom line is that I’ll continue to test topics and write about things I’m passionate about, with the hope that the money will follow.
I’ll have to check out your 18 ways post then! Unfortunately or fortunately, a lot of commentary is created by taking a stance on a debatable issue. If there is little more to discuss, then comments aren’t that abundant. Marketing is important too.
I’ve been having some other wonderful bloggers write for my site while I’m pushing 70+ hours (plus commute) during tax season. But when I was writing 3-4 times a week, I would spend 1.5 – 2 hours per post. My average seemed to be around 800 words, but i like the idea of fleshing out a post more and shooting for 1,000+ words. I have a lot of ideas I’m jotting down for when I get back on the saddle and have the time to write much more. I really like the “5,000 words a week challenge”, and plan on hitting that come April 16th through the rest of the year. I totally believe 2 – 3 years of mostly 1,000+ word posts with useful, well though out content can build a superior and highly ranked website that will sustain a steady flow of traffic (and income) for years to come. Plus, I’d feel very accomplished, and hopefully have helped a TON of people financially in the process.
The other thing is, time goes by quick! You’ll be amazed how fast 2-3 years in blogging goes by. If you stayed consistent all those years, you’ll have a passive traffic/income asset for sure!
The time I spend on a post varies depending on the topic I’m writing about. If it happens to be something like explaining an advanced option spread strategy, I’m going to take the time (3 – 4 hours) to make sure I haven’t made any mistakes. If I’m just discussing a basic financial concept, the posts take a lot less time to prepare.
This topic is very timely and refreshing to read about. I’ve been very inspired by the recent message on Yakezie to write longer posts with as much valuable content for the reader as possible. I just spent all week crafting my upcoming post for Monday by putting in a few hours each night writing and re-writing the text. It is upwards of +2,300 words. I do feel a little bit like I ran a marathon, and was even starting to have some doubts about whether or not (going forward) I was doing the right thing spending so much time on one activity. We all know there are plenty of other things we can and should be doing in our lives. While I don’t plan on putting out too many more posts of that size, I do think longer and better articles are the way to go. My hope is that as I continue to produce content like this, I’ll become more efficient at the process and not have to spend so much time working at it. Thanks for confirming that we all tend to struggle with this balance.
I think the chances are high that your Monday post is going to be one of your best posts for traffic over time. Perhaps don’t do such meaty mists every week as you might burn out. But shoot for once a month or so and see how it goes. Give it 6 months and watch your traffic start building up. Do it long enough and watch things grow!
I have an large collection of dud ideas in the draft area of my blog. The posts with the most reads are the ones that were the easiest to write and the ones that I am not so proud of were real labours.
I have 70 posts so far but I wonder how many more ideas are in my brain. Marketing takes so much creative energy that some days I don’t have anything left to write. If I cut back on marketing then my blog readership suffers.
I think you’ll be surprised with how many post ideas you can come up with. The world is ever changing, and there are so many ridiculous things happening that we can write on!
Sam, I admire you. Since I decided to work on my blog to convert it one day into a money making machine I am realizing what hectic job it is. I blog full time, but for a few pennies. I work 9-5 and when I get home I blog from 6 – 12 or 1 am, so almost a second job. But I realized that I really like it.
Thanks Martin. Maybe this is why very few bloggers are willing to take me up on the 5K word a week Challenge, even though they are frustrated with their traffic.
Liking it is more than half the battle! Good luck!
Sam I’m with many here. If I’m feeling the post the words seem to fly from my keyboard and before you know it I’m at 1,000. Other posts it seems like after the first 200 I just can’t take it.
I try to finish in the first sit down, but need to work on that to create better content.
Sounds good Justin. Try always forcing yourself to finish a first draft in one sitting, then go back and do some edits and see how it goes.
[…] in Lifestyle on March 14th, 2013 0 Blogging, Personal Development TweetMy freelancer friend who got me all depressed about spending 10+ hours on a post while she churns out short posts for lots of money mentioned her great strategy about faking it. […]
I normally don’t start out posting with a specific word count in mind, but aim to write about what I know well. In that case, I find I can try and get a post of close to 1000 words fairly easily. I think one of the struggles I try and balance is when does something become too long or laborious that you lose people along the way. Obviously depends on the post and how well its written, but I feel like 1000 words gets you into the content and more than 1500 can start to become a little tedious to read, especially if you are time constrained.