Sometimes life happens. You overbook your freelance writing calendar, work 18 hours a day, and never feel like you’re going to get ahead. When this happens, it’s easy to fall behind on updating your blog. We’ll call this a “blogging sabbatical.”
Once you’ve taken some serious naps, pulled yourself together, and are ready to restart your blogging efforts, here are your options.
Write An Apology Post Ending Your Sabbatical
If you’ve fallen very behind on your blog post schedule and you have an active reader base, you can issue an apology on your blog explaining what you’ve been up to and how you’re back to posting regularly, for good. The only issue with this strategy is you can’t use it too much. If you take more than one blogging sabbatical in a short period of time, readers grow frustrated and feel you’re making excuses to them. Be honest with your readers, but also realistic with yourself.
Backdate Your Posts
If you keep to a regular blogging schedule, such as every Friday, you could create content and backdate your posts to show that they were posted on schedule. This may cause certain social media posting apps and RSS feeds to malfunction, however, as the post wasn’t really posted on that date. Plus, if you’re very far behind, that’s a lot of posts to write on top of the regular schedule you planned on. This may cause you to fall further behind on your current posts, which isn’t the best strategy. Determine if having a consistent blog with backdated posts is more important than just moving forward with new posts correctly dated in the present.
Start Fresh, Today
You do not need to say or do anything if you’ve fallen off of your blog posting schedule during an intentional or accidental blogging sabbatical. Go ahead and start posting new posts now without giving it too much thought. After all, posting something today is better than falling off schedule again. Just move forward.
If you’d like more advice, consider freelance writer coaching. If you’re working on a novel, consider purchasing a novel critique for expert feedback.