This is the fourth and final post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on When Life Gets in the Way.

There are many anxieties surrounding bloggers and posting. Some of the anxieties discussed today are content theft, credibility, target audience, posting times, and a few others.

Content Theft

A typical blog post for me takes at least an hour. Now some punk goes and takes my content and puts it on his site as well. This content-scraper can now interlace the content I created with ads and make money off of my work.

What’s a blogger to do when they find out someone has been stealing their content? One option is to contact the person directly, but this may not work out in all cases.

My biggest problem is that people will take an excerpt of my content and place it on their site without any commentary. I don’t have a problem with people quoting my work, but at least provide some unique spin.

Credibility

Are you worried that you don’t have the right stuff when it comes to writing a blog post? Perhaps you’re worried that people will discredit your work or make fun of you?

When I was in speech class in college, my professor said that a humble speaker is a nervous speaker. I would also argue that a humble blogger is a nervous blogger. Anytime one can write something and not care what the audience thinks is the day when one has crossed the boundary into being egocentric.

Here are some quick tips to diminish the anxiety of credibility problems:

Know Your Stuff

This seems to be a given, but if you know your material really well, then be confident in your remarks when/if confronted.

Do Your Research

Make sure you get the dates and names right. Double-check links and double-check sources.

Use a Spell-Checker and Read Out Loud

At least use a spell-checker before publishing a blog post. Reading your post out loud will also catch a lot of errors.

Target Audience

The anxiety regarding target audience will often come up with guest blogging for someone. Darren Rowse wrote a great article on how to be a good guest blogger.

If you are having target audience anxiety on your own blog, one tip I have been given was to picture somebody you know that you want to come to the site and write for that person.

If you are worried about going over the heads of your target audience (such as talking technical), either refrain from making those kind of blog posts or find a blog where you can write about that stuff freely. You could always introduce your audience to technical things slowly such as things like RSS.

High Profile Posts

I submitted an essay for the WLTC Essay Contest in December of ‘06. This was by far the biggest audience I had ever written for. And being that my essay was rather controversial, I couldn’t really handle the negative comments. The first few comments were positive. The first negative comment had me walking out of work early and straight into the gym. I was a young blogger. I should have known better than to enter a high-profile contest with an essay that basically said, “Don’t write about this, please.” My skin had yet to thicken. I’m still not sure it has.

My cure for the anxiety of a high-profile post was to basically ignore it. I tried to forget it was there. After two weeks or so, the buzz around the post died down and people stopped getting all frantic and offended. People moved on. Bes Zain wrote a good article on how to handle critical comments.

Potentially Offending People

You’ve got a post together and are about to hit that ‘Publish’ button. However, you are worried you might piss people off.

Although you should have a reasonable worry that people may be offended, I think that blogs and political correctness do not mix. I’ve said elsewhere that the day that political correctness takes over in the blogosphere is the day that blogging dies.

Bloggers should be able to speak and speak frankly. If people are offended, then that is that person’s choice to be offended. You will not make everyone happy, nor should you expect to. Hit that ‘Publish’ button and stand firm in your opinion.

Posting Time

I try if I can to not post something at midnight. The reason is, I usually find myself staying awake to make sure that the post was published correctly. I also wake up periodically in the middle of the night to see if anyone has commented.

If you have a problem sleeping, I would recommend posting in advance (like writing on the weekend or something) and publishing the post sometime during the day.

I find that when I set a post to publish at around 0600, I have a better night’s sleep and it’s easier for me to wake up at the prospect of a fresh batch of commentators.

Milestones

All bloggers have milestones that they would like to reach. For example, one milestone could be to reach a certain number of feed subscribers. Another milestone might be to achieve a certain Technorati ranking.

I personally would like to see a higher subscriber count and also more interaction between me and the readers.

However, there is a difference between having a goal for a milestone and expecting a milestone. Do I expect more subscribers? No. Do I want more? Certainly. So what am I going to do to get more subscribers?

It’s good to have milestones, but when these milestones aren’t met, it can be a little unnerving. My advice would be to do what you can to reach a milestone, but not to get discouraged if the milestone isn’t met.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the latest blogger anxiety post regarding posting. If you have any other anxieties regarding posting, please leave a comment.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

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