A few friends and fellow book bloggers have recently mentioned NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a 175-page (about 50,000 word) novel between November 1 and November 30. This sounds cool, but I’m not a novelist so it’s not really my thing.
However, also ran across NaBloPoMo — National Blog Posting Month. Bloggers are invited to sign up for the challenge to blog every day. Some months there is a theme for bloggers to write about if they get stuck, but they haven’t announced one for November. If you’re successful in the challenge (blogging every day), you get put in some drawings for prizes.
I’m strongly considering joining NaBloPoMo; I enjoy posting to my blog a lot, and I think I have enough ideas for posts and reviews percolating in my brain that I could come up with content for 30 days. ProBlogger.net recently added two posts (on October 25 and October 26) about finding your blogging rhythm that I also think would be helpful.
On the other hand, I’m worried about time, seeing as my semester is likely to get more busy rather than less busy. I’m also worried about the idea of blog quality. I don’t want to post just for the sake of posting — that seems self-indulgent, and I worry posts would get uninteresting.
There was an article on Slate a few weeks ago by Michael Agger called “Blogging for Dollars” which discussed a common phenomenon when bloggers start to professionalize — the pressure to produce daily content (to therefore drive up readership) can lead to “top-10 lists, recycled ideas, half-baked notions, lots of viral videos, and a general increase in information pollution.” I’m proud of most of my content thus far, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize quality just for a challenge.
Are any of you interested in NaBloPoMo? Would it be helpful or fun to organize a book blogger NaBloPoMo support group? If there were people who were interested, I’d be happy to host…
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I think this is a cool idea, but I’d definitely have to wait until after the semester is out. I already find myself struggling to post new and interesting stuff weekly right now because school has me so tied up. And, like you, I don’t want to start posting a bunch of nonsense stuff just to post every day.
bexadler: Yes, it’s a terrible time in the semester. It feels like someone just decided to flip the “on” switch and everything has gone crazy! They do NaBloPoMo every month, so maybe I’ll wait until January, right in the middle of Christmas break and the easy beginning of the semester. Something to think about…
Interesting, but I’d say only go for it if you think you have something to say every day. Personally, I try to keep my blog focused on book reviews, and so I don’t do a lot of the memes and stuff that are floating around, even if it means I go days between posts. That’s totally personal preference, and I’m sure it costs me traffic, but so it goes. I’ll be interested to see how it goes for you if you try, though!
NaBloPoMo sounds really cool, I try to post most days and taking part in certain weekly memes like Weekly Geeks and Tuesday Thingers really helps. The main reason I like to keep active on my blog is that it helps to keep my reading habits organized and I like that posting book reviews makes me think much more about what I’ve read, sometimes providing insights I may have overlooked.
I may just sign up for November, I decided to take this semester off so I’ve got lots of time. Thanks for posting about NaBloPoMo 🙂
I really like the *idea* but not the actual practicality. Because I’ve been doing this “donation for every comment” thing for the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to have 5-6 posts a week and I’m going crazy trying to keep up with reading and reviewing. As you say, I guess I’m worried that if I make my posts too non-book review oriented, it would water down the blog.
So I’m not going to do it.
I read my cousin’s (mommy blog) last year and she did it, and to be honest, it got kind of annoying by the end. “I have nothing to say today, here is my post” kind of thing. I imagine there will be plenty of posts out there to read and I’m having a hard time keeping up with my reader as it is.
But you’re in my favorites folder, so I always read yours (even when I don’t comment), so really just do what you want!
I’m sure, like anything, the quality will depend on the effort you put into it. I started out doing a lot more with my blog than I do right now, but other things (writing for example) are consuming so much of my time I’m not writing as many thoughtful posts or as many thoughtful comments.
I bet if you thought out topics and put time and effort into it, you could have quality content every day.
fyrefly: Yeah, my blog hasn’t really ever been exclusively book reviews, and more books and blogging in general, so that makes it easier to post frequently. It’s a tricky balance to figure out a posting schedule that works for you and works for how many readers you think you want to have.
Joanne: It would be great if you signed up, I would love to hear how it goes even if I end up not doing it. And if I did, it would be fun to have at least one fellow book blogger I know doing it also. Weekly Geeks and Sunday Salon help a lot for generating post ideas, that’s for sure.
Rebecca: I think what you pointed out is my main thought too — the idea is awesome, I’m just not sure how well I could do it. I subscribe to some blogs that post multiple times a day or post with stuff I think is pointless, so I wouldn’t want to become what I think is annoying 🙂 I’m glad to know you’re reading though, and I also always read yours blog too even if I don’t comment as often as I should!
Kim L: Yes, good point too. I’m confident I could do it well if I planned well, I just haven’t decided if I can commit to the planning… if that makes sense 🙂
You DO have a quality blog – I enjoy it. 🙂
I attempted a month of posting every day (I think it was DEC 07) and was annoyed that no one from the signup site every came to visit me after I visited them. I realized I was getting obsessed so I just post when I want to now and TRY not to take it so seriously!
bkclubcare: Thank you! That’s nice to hear! It’s too bad no one came to visit. Blogging can be a really selfish thing, but you’d think people would have at least stopped back to see what you were up to. I think getting obsessed would be pretty easy — I can see myself being blog obsessed already 🙂
I signed up to do it this month. I almost made every day in October anyway, and thought this would help a lot to get those last few days. My blog tends to be a little bit of everything anyway, and I know that annoys some readers, but it does make it easier to find a “real” post every day. Even if some days my “real” post is a couple of pictures- I don’t throw the pictures up because I want to post, but rather cause I want to share the pictures, if that makes sense.
I’d join up with you in a support group, if you started one.
Lisa: Excellent! I ended up not starting a support group because I didn’t know if I could do that and make sure I was getting all my posts and stuff. But, I added you to my Google Reader so I’ll be sure to comment as much as I can 🙂