quality over quantity? or can i have both?

Last night, Rae (of Made By Rae) posted some very interesting thoughts about craft blogging. She discussed how much work it is to create something and blog about it, as opposed to non-craft bloggers that write about a certain topic, or post lists of other people's blog posts.

I was right there with her. You got it, sister! We work hard for our blogs! And we love it!

But then she started talking about blogging frequency, and thanked her readers for sticking with her even though she doesn't post every day.

And then, and then, I started reading some of the comments. A lot of them were saying that they don't like blogs with daily posts, because it's just too much. According to some commenters, the blogs sacrifice quality for quantity. Now, I totally understand this when you're talking about the big blog machines, like the Apartment Therapy blog collection (including Ohdeedoh, Kitchn, ReNest, etc.), that crank out 10 posts a day. I'm about ready to unsubscribe from those on my reader. But what about the hard working, individual, small bloggers (like, oh, me) that put out one daily post. Is that also too much? Am I sacrificing quality for quantity?

Let me back up a minute. When I started blogging, I had every intention to sell ad space and make this baby work for me. In order to make that work, I did my research and knew I needed to start by bringing in lots of people. Traffic. More traffic = more clicks = more money. Yeah, baby. So I researched how to bring in said traffic, and rule #1 on everything I found was Daily. Quality. Posts. Daily quality posts became my goal.

I took pictures of everything. I took pictures of the crafts I made. I took pictures of the muffins I made. I took pictures of that awesome dinner that I totally freestyled. I took pictures of my garden growing and games I play with my kids. But I tried my hardest to make sure these things were quality, of interest to others, and not just fluff. And you know what? Along the way, I decided it was fun. I found I absolutely loved sharing ideas with you guys. Once in a while, someone would comment in response and I would be giddy with excitement that someone other than my parents was reading. And soon, I began to see ads on blogs as cheesy, greedy, and put my concentration into creating more things to share with you. But all these crafts, recipes, ideas you see on my blog are things I would be doing anyway. Nothing is fabricated solely for the purpose of blogging.

Are you still there? This is getting long. Sorry.

I've been thinking for a while that I should slow down. Daily blog posts really cut into my day, eating more and more minutes away from time I should be spending with my kids or my husband. And even though I enjoy this blog immensely, I want to make sure I keep my priorities in check.

So for now, I'm going to try not to post every day. It's going to be hard, believe me. It's part of my daily routine. Tomorrow, instead of blogging, I'm going to play a game with my kids. Make brownies. Blow bubbles. I'm going to try really hard not to worry that you'll all leave, annoyed with my lack of posting. (I've been significantly less annoyed with infrequent bloggers now that I use Google Reader. Now their posts are like pleasant surprises, instead of visiting their blog each day to find no new posts.)

I'll still be around, trust me. I have too many things lined up that I'm excited to share with you. But maybe it'll be 3 or 4 posts a week instead of five. We'll see.

If you're still reading way down here, thank you. I love that you listen to me ramble.

I'm done now. Carry on.