Winston Churchill wrote:
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
A blog is a book without end - it is a toy and an amusement for a while, then there is some pleasure as small successes add up. But then there is pressure to maintain and increase the bredth of coverage and depth of audience, and this becomes the tyrrany of daily posting pressure. This is where I am now - looking at that blog monster, and wondering how to kill it.
Wendy Piersall is wondering what comes next. She’s done everything right, and recieved the success that she deserves (and while I am not an eMom, and I don’t work from home, I read everything she writes, because she has been so useful to me in my own quest to be a better blogger). With success has come an increased workload - and Wendy can’t increase her physical output owing to there only being 24 hours in every day.
Darren Rowse, another Wendy fan (and another of my key blogging mentors) has suggested that she look at a range of options, including leveraging her time (that is, working out how to work smarter not harder, and looking at how other people can help her maintain and increase her audience). Darren’s suggestions include:
- Finding untapped audiences through translating to other audiences, writing for other sites, looking at mainstream media as a marketing channel, and looking at offline promotion ideas (and speaking of offline promotion success stories, check out what Seth Godin did for Squidoo at a trade show).
- Looking at getting help - either from guest bloggers or an administrative assistant.
I think that Wendy’s problem, and Darren’s advice, is something that most bloggers must come to if they continue blogging long enough - a classic blunder that I made was to start a new blog every time I came up with a new idea for a blog - I’ve stopped doing this now, but I will have to prune off some of the dead wood soon (or learn to leverage).
Without leveraging, we don’t ever get to kill the monster. When I think about it, “killing the monster” is the key driver for my joining Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind mentoring program. Like Wendy, I want to know what comes next.
If you have found a way to leverage your blogging experience and it has made a positive difference in your life, please leave me a comment and let me know how you did it 
Candidly — heck no, not yet! I’m suffering the same overload you are… more than full time day job, family, two (less than you!) blogs, trying to get started with freelance writing, and lately a professional online seminar for recertification.
Plus my family is going on vacation for the next two weeks and I’m trying to pre-write techblog posts so I can truly vacation for at least a week of it - and I’m just plain striking out… can’t get more than two or so ahead.
If I didn’t need to keep my day job while building a basis for something different - it’d be ever so much easier. Leaving that is not an option, though, so I just need to figure out how to balance it all a little more effectively and still take care of myself and my family.
I feel silly whining because others manage to accomplish so much more with less. And the writing IS fun or I wouldn’t do it! Still, I’m not sure how long I can keep up the pace without also needing to prune.
Honest response, sorry!
Hi Jeri,
Thank you for your comment.
I feel your pain. I think that the issue is an important one and I am glad that Wendy shared it with us, because when she works it out she can tell us so that we can all learn from the experience
This is not to make light of the very real pain that she (and you, and I) are feeling around this at the moment.
An anecdote: I was asked yesterday by our consultancy office manager what I did with all the non-billable time that I put onto my timesheet each week. This is regularly 20 hours or more on top of the 40 or so billable hours that I work. I gave her a list - she seemed impressed (or perhaps appalled, not sure which) Add blogging to that, and yes, there are not enough hours in the day.
I am grateful for your honest response, please keep them coming. It is not whining when you put up your hand and ask for help. Everyone has the right to do that.
PS: Happy Anniversary
Cheers, Andrew