Q&A Friday #64: How About Guest Bloggers On The Week-Ends?

Question: “You get such great guest-bloggers to fill in for you when you’re sick, or need a vacation. Have you ever considered having guest bloggers on the weekends? You know, so we can keep getting our political blog fix without having to wait until Monday.” — GEBIV

Answer: The short answer is: that’s a good idea, but I’m not sure I can practically make it work.

The long answer is a bit more complicated.

Way back in the day when I ran a humor page, I used to actually update 7 days a week. However, what I found was that my traffic dropped about 40% on the week-ends, whether I posted or not, and in addition, it was starting to burn me out. So, I switched to 5 day weeks back then and stayed with it. When it came to RWN, from the start I was doing it with 5 day a week updates. But, in reality, between Conservative Grapevine, the email, and other behind-the scenes work, it’s really a 6 days a week, 10-12 hours per day, enterprise.

…….Which brings me to the guest bloggers. Late last year, between updating RWN, CG, running the conservative blogads network, and all the work I was doing with Rightroots, I got a little worn out. So, I came to the conclusion that I needed to take a little more time off. Instead of just taking holidays and an extra day, I needed to take a few personal days during the year, along with a week long vacation in the middle of the year and at the end of the year.

Now, that may seem like a lot of time off, but if you’re doing as much as I do, which includes Right Wing News, Conservative Grapevine, writing a column for Townhall, running the conservative blogads network, and consulting for Duncan Hunter, it’s hard to stay mentally fresh if I don’t take some time off.

So, towards that end, I built up a stable of 23 potential guest bloggers, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. I mean you have to find people who are talented enough to be of use, trustworthy enough to allow them to post on your blog without worry that they’re going to embarrass you, and interested enough to help out. I’ve managed to do that and because I have so many potential bloggers, I can usually find 4-6 of them to cover for me on any day I’m out.

As to having guest bloggers on the week-ends, I’m not adverse to the idea, but I can see where it could be hard to put together a regular crew to do it. After all, it’s one thing to fill in for someone once every few months, but filling in for that person every week-end is a different animal.

Could I find 10 bloggers, who are talented, already posting on the week-ends, and would be willing to cross post at Right Wing News? Maybe, and I think it would make the page better. But, can I pull it off? I don’t know. I will say this though — it’s a good idea and I am going to put out a few feelers to see if I can make it work.

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