How Can We Slow the Production Treadmill of Excessive Content Creation?

There’s a fine line between hard work and the pure madness of fluff-writing

As content creators we’ve got a tough situation. If we want to get noticed and make a name for ourselves we’ve got to write… and write a lot. If we write a lot we create a huge pile of content.

The next writer works harder to create a bigger pile of content so she can be seen towards the front of the line.

We want to get our work to the top of the pile, so we type a little harder.

The content pile grows… and grows. It’s like the game where you put your hands on a baseball bat, one hand moving over the other, until there’s no more room for a fist at the top. The last person wins and their team plays first.

This works well for sandlot baseball, but when the bat has an unlimited height, as content creators the treadmill can overwhelm your life.

We know we’ve got to produce to be seen, but where do we draw the line?

These cognitive piles are everywhere, not just Medium. There are social media piles, ultra-fast book publication piles, blogging piles, podcasting piles, and an endless stream of binge-worthy videos.

As content writers we’re both the problem and the victim.

We want our work to be seen. It’s harder than ever for that to happen. The barrier is lower. The kid in the classroom must stand on her seat, jumping up and down, with a long arm raised high over head.

And if we don’t get picked right away, our audience’s attention shifts to the next content at the top.

There’s only so much time to read and everything fights for a piece of that time.

What do we do?

At some point we’ll reach a critical mass. It’s not as if there’s a new pile of readers hiding somewhere. There are a finite number of people in our audience.

There are, however, five things we CAN do to help us avoid creator’s madness (a fake clinical term I just invented):

1. Stick to a publishing schedule — if your goal is to write an article an hour/day/week/month, stick with it. When that piece is done, put down the pencil and back away.
2. Go for the long tail — there’s no room at the bottom. The low-hanging fruit were picked years ago. Now all that’s left down there are bulk-producers who scavenge for scraps. Find a very specific niche and serve that niche. There’s plenty of room at the top.
3. Own your audience list — build a platform of your own. This includes and email list. When we create content on someone else’s real estate, we don’t own the readership. We’re at the mercy of curators and algorithms.
4. It’s not a quick-fix — it may not feel like it, but content creation — good content creation is a long game. The material we write is available forever. Most people will never read our work. But a tiny few will. These are the people we serve. The rest don’t matter.
5. Question your motives — do you have an overall intent for your body of work? Are you writing to write? Are you looking for quick cash (never a good idea)? When we focus more on the craft of content creation, and less of a quick Band-Aid slap-job — everyone wins.

Burn-out is a real thing.

We want to maintain a writing sustainable writing lifestyle, not a prison term. Sure, we can always write one. more. article. But that doesn’t mean we should.

Those who persevere, who plod-along with consistent output will win. The writers who vomit for a week straight will burn themselves out and turn to the next shiny thing.

How to stop being part of the problem

It’s tempting to write filler material. The marshmallowy fluff covering a substantial body of work. But the fluff doesn’t add to your story. Fluff doesn’t turn the crank. Fluff does not an audience make. Fluff does one thing only — it speeds-up the treadmill and adds to the overall pile.

Yeah, it’s cool to write for the sake of writing.

But let’s keep that kind of writing on legal pads and buried in notebooks. Our audience shouldn’t have to get the shovel from the garage to clear a path for content worth reading.

The shoveled path is the content creator’s job.

We curate our own work by deciding what’s publish-worthy and what’s not. Do we win every time? Hell no. Winning is not for us to decide. But if we publish the best work we can, the quality bar will be raised, not the quantity bar.

Tomorrow we work a little harder to publish something better than today.

The best writing gets noticed. Rarely the fastest, but the best work lasts longer. In the content world we want longevity more than anything. Who wants to spend hours on a piece only to have it live thirty minutes?

The junk will wash away and the best work floats to the top. There will forever be clickbait that gains ten-second fame. We don’t need ten seconds to be successful writers. We need a body of work that sticks.

Article spinners and content mills make for great mindless reading. But all that stuff has a five minute shelf life. Let them have their Twinkies and ice cream.

We’ll be over here making a difference.

When the readers get bored with the nonsense they’ll find you — honing your craft. Getting 1% better every day behind the keyboard.

Nothing about writing is easy.

Nothing about content creation is fast.

There are more opportunities for writers than ever, but the barrier to entry is so low the barn door is wide-open 24/7/365.

Follow the fives steps.

Build your own barn and lock it tight.

Let the bottom-feeders scrape the bag for the chip crumbs. We’ll be up here working to create the best content we can. We won’t always hit the mark. But we get after it every day.

I’d love to know your opinion about this. Are we sticking ourselves with an endless content-creation treadmill, paying someone else’s bills? Or do we have the huevos to publish only our best work and leave the slop for the others.

We need more writers like you and fewer like them. You know who they are. Look to your right and left.

We’re waiting for you.