How Much Time Do You Spend Writing a Blog Post?

November 28th, 2008 | Net News

Back when writing was my sole blogging-related job, I often spent countless hours in front of my laptop writing feature-length posts. Sometimes I spent this time at cafes waiting for my daughter to finish her preschool class (about three hours). Sometimes even more--when I'm just not satisfied with an article, I save it as draft for later editing and publishing. This lets me have more time to

On a recent Blog Herald article, Thord Hedengren wonders why some folks from traditional media often relate blogging to rapid-fire writing akin to being a shoot now, aim later approach. And so when a blogger takes time to write, edit and publish a post, it's called slow blogging.

Sure, blogging does have the benefit of skipping a few editorial steps, and so bloggers often get to post news earlier than most mainstream media outfits. You can catch wind of some news or nasty rumor and post about it in the next two minutes. That can be good blogging, if it's your intent to spread the news as fast as possible. But then good blogging also entails research, painstaking editing, and even thinking twice or thrice whether to publish an article or not.

I've been there. I've written lengthy posts only to take a long look at my laptop screen, and decide that it's simply not good enough, or not relevant anymore, and hit the delete button.

And so, folks, I would like to ask you this. On average, how long do you spend on a blog post? Perhaps we can differentiate it a bit between news-type posts and feature- or review-type posts. Next time you write an article for your blog, try to keep track of the time, and tell me how much you spent on that particular post. You can submit your answer here, or you can leave a comment.

This particular post took me about 25 minutes to write, in which I also had to switching across browser windows and tabs, scan related blog articles, create a poll and search the Performancing archive for similar posts. Oh, I also had a five minute nap midway. But in most cases, writing blog posts would take me up to one hour, particularly when I need to research for related material, and when I want to make sure I have a tight argument.

How about you? Do you take the time to think, study and reflect before [you] post? Or do you think that this should be the case whether it's a quick post or a time-consuming article?