[quantisan]

Writing is a skill. If you don't work on it, you will always be an average writer. The question then, is do you treat writing as a means to an end or a skill to be mastered?

I've been writing my own blog for 7 years. It still takes me at least half a day to write each of my posts (about 500 words). I post infrequently because of that. After all these years of writing on my blog, I only have a couple hundred subscribers. If I outsource it to post more regularly, would I be more efficient and effective? Probably.

The thing is, my writing is noticeably better over the years. I started out just brain dumping ideas and try to slip in screenshots whenever I can so my posts didn't look too pathetic (e.g. this one in 2008 http://www.quantisan.com/trade-of-the-day-bailed-out-of-a-wr.... Nowadays, I do the opposite. Getting your idea across simply and effortlessly for the reader is most important (e.g. this one from March, http://www.quantisan.com/more-problem-solving-less-solution-...). In recent years, my posts are getting more likes, more shares, and have been on HN a couple times.

Writing is like programming. Anyone can do it but to be good at it, you need to keep doing it and put in the effort to improve. Or, you can spend $300 for somebody else to do it for you.

[gadgets15]

How do you deal with continuity and being able to write articles weekly?. This is my biggest problem, if you are not dedicated and have other side projects, it will be very very difficult to sustain. Users want fresh content and will quickly disappear if you are not dedicated.