This time of year I usually try to make about writing because we're coming up on the slow season for my other business, people tend to have less time to travel for work during the holidays and the weather is a bit too unpredictable to schedule a lot of outdoor scenes. Yet, I still find days, when even just writing, an indoor, not too costly, activity I can do by myself, is hard to schedule.
I have to meet a guest mid-day today. That leaves a few errands to run before hand and means I have to be available to answer questions or solve problems most of the weekend. Mostly a great schedule for writing. Except, I have some personality quirks that interfere.
One, when I start writing fiction, I can get kind of caught up in it. An interruption leaves the world I'm creating in limbo. I may be in the middle of my characters facing a monster or defusing a dirty bomb. Nobody wants to leave that sort of situation mid-action to go to the grocery store for some paper towels. It's a problem I can largely get over, but I do find myself avoiding it if I know my other job(s) will start before I think I'm finished. Like right now, I'm blogging because I know I can finish this before I have to leave and even if I don't, I won't be leaving fictional characters in the lurch if I don't.
Two, for the movie review blogs, I need to watch a movie. That's 90 minutes of a day gone. I can get some other stuff done, but if I do, I'm not being fair to the movies I'm reviewing. So, I miss a few of those a week. I can't watch the types of movies I review when I'm with family and friends unless they're the types who enjoy those movies too. It's not fair to them and again, not really fair to the movie to have someone constantly interrupting me to talk about what they're reading on the phone because retro-independent-B cinema doesn't interest them.
Three, the CGM blog isn't getting a lot of news. Maybe I'm not pursuing it enough. Maybe we're not popular enough yet to be a place filmmakers and artists want to submit to and maybe, just maybe, the same slow down that makes this my "writing season", makes it less likely new and interesting things are happening in other parts of the indie world.
That said, content counts. The more quality you put out the more loyal followers you'll gain, but you can't discount quantity either. I have clicks here and views on the YouTube channel even on days I producer nothing. Why? Because with enough content you're bound to have something floating around on the internet that someone, somewhere is looking for on any particular day. Keep that content flowing and you can help people find information they need, keep them entertained, keep a steady flow of viewership and even have it happening on your days off.
If you see a big busy season approaching, stocking up on content and setting it to publish on specific dates is a way to go. You need to either plan it to coincide with the date it will publish, like a "romance" movie in February, or make it general enough that the information isn't likely to change between when you create the article and when it posts. Setting up weekly posts for March-October would be a good way for me to spend time in January and February. So, don't be surprised if things slow down here, but do feel free to comment or write to me if you think I'm letting too much time slip by and have let the blogs down. It usually happens at some point in the year and it takes me forever to "re-launch" them. Blogs, vlogs and anything "serial" is like long term financial investing. They do best when fed into regularly and are allowed to continue to grow. They need adjustments with market trends, but the main factor to success seems to be a constant building upon the foundation you put down. Any big lapses or withdrawals cause a need to rebuild and the loss is exponential. (Did I use that word correctly?)
Alright, heard my phone ping. I may need to head off to work now.
I have to meet a guest mid-day today. That leaves a few errands to run before hand and means I have to be available to answer questions or solve problems most of the weekend. Mostly a great schedule for writing. Except, I have some personality quirks that interfere.
One, when I start writing fiction, I can get kind of caught up in it. An interruption leaves the world I'm creating in limbo. I may be in the middle of my characters facing a monster or defusing a dirty bomb. Nobody wants to leave that sort of situation mid-action to go to the grocery store for some paper towels. It's a problem I can largely get over, but I do find myself avoiding it if I know my other job(s) will start before I think I'm finished. Like right now, I'm blogging because I know I can finish this before I have to leave and even if I don't, I won't be leaving fictional characters in the lurch if I don't.
Two, for the movie review blogs, I need to watch a movie. That's 90 minutes of a day gone. I can get some other stuff done, but if I do, I'm not being fair to the movies I'm reviewing. So, I miss a few of those a week. I can't watch the types of movies I review when I'm with family and friends unless they're the types who enjoy those movies too. It's not fair to them and again, not really fair to the movie to have someone constantly interrupting me to talk about what they're reading on the phone because retro-independent-B cinema doesn't interest them.
Three, the CGM blog isn't getting a lot of news. Maybe I'm not pursuing it enough. Maybe we're not popular enough yet to be a place filmmakers and artists want to submit to and maybe, just maybe, the same slow down that makes this my "writing season", makes it less likely new and interesting things are happening in other parts of the indie world.
That said, content counts. The more quality you put out the more loyal followers you'll gain, but you can't discount quantity either. I have clicks here and views on the YouTube channel even on days I producer nothing. Why? Because with enough content you're bound to have something floating around on the internet that someone, somewhere is looking for on any particular day. Keep that content flowing and you can help people find information they need, keep them entertained, keep a steady flow of viewership and even have it happening on your days off.
If you see a big busy season approaching, stocking up on content and setting it to publish on specific dates is a way to go. You need to either plan it to coincide with the date it will publish, like a "romance" movie in February, or make it general enough that the information isn't likely to change between when you create the article and when it posts. Setting up weekly posts for March-October would be a good way for me to spend time in January and February. So, don't be surprised if things slow down here, but do feel free to comment or write to me if you think I'm letting too much time slip by and have let the blogs down. It usually happens at some point in the year and it takes me forever to "re-launch" them. Blogs, vlogs and anything "serial" is like long term financial investing. They do best when fed into regularly and are allowed to continue to grow. They need adjustments with market trends, but the main factor to success seems to be a constant building upon the foundation you put down. Any big lapses or withdrawals cause a need to rebuild and the loss is exponential. (Did I use that word correctly?)
Alright, heard my phone ping. I may need to head off to work now.
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