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Take it from a very expensive copywriter: you cannot write a quality blog post in 1 hour. Consider the content of this post: 1. research 2. draft 3. edit .

by fluxic 8y ago

Take it from a very expensive copywriter: you cannot write a quality blog post in 1 hour. Consider the content of this post: 1. research 2. draft 3. edit ...revolutionary. Maybe there's a reason why Baremetrics writers aren't in the New Yorker ;)

gk1 8y ago
The New Yorker is an unfair bar, though. Most founders stand to gain a lot from just writing, and many of them don't because they're (often) engineers, not writers. Edit: The parent comment originally said something along the lines of "...there's a reason you don't see anyone from Baremetrics in The New Yorker." Edit: Now the New Yorker comment is back.
- fluxic 8y ago
  Even if you're a New Yorker-calibre writer, you won't be able to write anything of "quality" in less than an hour. Now imagine if you're not a New Yorker-calibre writer! (I'm a pretty snobby reader and still like the occasional techie-founder post. You don't have to be a copywriting wizard to write something substantive, but it isn't enough to just commit text to the page. You can tell when someone has thought deeply and laboured over a piece of writing. The idea that you can write something worthy of other people's time in one hour is cut-and-dry clickbait.)
  - ozim 8y ago
    If someone has some insight and just writes about it and I get some value from it, like it is neat idea that is quality for me. Long post with a lot of research in area that turns out is not interesting for me does not have quality for me. Maybe quality would be that person writes first paragraph in a way that makes it clear it is not interesting for me.
Shpigford 8y ago
Maybe it's because that's not where our customers are? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I write most of our posts in ~1 hour and hot dog, here we are on HN and you're reading it. :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- DisruptiveDave 8y ago
  Oh man. My two cents (many, many years of content writing). It's very difficult to write a high quality post in under an hour. In my mind, high quality = somewhat original, well thought out, required some level of research/citations, includes actionable advice, formatted properly, SEO-juiced appropriately, and proofread effectively. Not all blog posts need to be that in depth, however. I've produced a ton of medium quality posts and those can be done in under an hour, sometimes. And they have value. Side note - getting on HN and "you read the thing" aren't markers of high quality.
- onion2k 8y ago
  here we are on HN and you're reading it Unless you're in the business of generating blog post views or HN comments the fact that people are discussing it here is irrelevant. Those things are vanity metrics. They don't matter to your business. Your post could get 10,000 upvotes and a million comments, but if you don't get a sale from all that extra "brand awareness" you've still wasted an hour of your time.
  - corobo 8y ago
    If you're the business entity sure. The person who wrote the article though has an ego and people reading, reacting, responding to the article all feed the ego. Vanity metrics are the only reason we do things after the base instincts
- foobaw 8y ago
  It's fair though to assume that the CEO knows the company metrics better than all of us. I'm assuming these 1-hour blog posts do move their metrics in a meaningful way and the HN thing was just banter. Also, the term "quality" is highly dependant on context. I wouldn't compare it to "The New Yorker," but rather other similar companies' blog posts.
BeetleB 8y ago
>Maybe there's a reason why Baremetrics writers aren't in the New Yorker That's a good thing. They want as many people to read as possible, and most of their audience will not have the patience to read a New Yorker piece.
lenm225 8y ago
Take it from another (former) very expensive copywriter: yes you can. But a blog post you'd hire a very expensive copywriter for and a blog post like the ones discussed in the article are quite different. That doesn't mean the latter aren't quality blog posts. Like another comment said, it depends on your audience (and, I'd add, more importantly, the purpose of the post).
rb808 8y ago
I think the thing for founders is they don't have time to spend more than an hour, but they have experience and viewpoints that are interesting to most people if they just put pen to paper (so to speak).

by fluxic 8y ago

gk1 8y ago

The New Yorker is an unfair bar, though. Most founders stand to gain a lot from just writing, and many of them don't because they're (often) engineers, not writers. Edit: The parent comment originally said something along the lines of "...there's a reason you don't see anyone from Baremetrics in The New Yorker." Edit: Now the New Yorker comment is back.

fluxic 8y ago
Even if you're a New Yorker-calibre writer, you won't be able to write anything of "quality" in less than an hour. Now imagine if you're not a New Yorker-calibre writer! (I'm a pretty snobby reader and still like the occasional techie-founder post. You don't have to be a copywriting wizard to write something substantive, but it isn't enough to just commit text to the page. You can tell when someone has thought deeply and laboured over a piece of writing. The idea that you can write something worthy of other people's time in one hour is cut-and-dry clickbait.)
- ozim 8y ago
  If someone has some insight and just writes about it and I get some value from it, like it is neat idea that is quality for me. Long post with a lot of research in area that turns out is not interesting for me does not have quality for me. Maybe quality would be that person writes first paragraph in a way that makes it clear it is not interesting for me.

Shpigford 8y ago

Maybe it's because that's not where our customers are? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I write most of our posts in ~1 hour and hot dog, here we are on HN and you're reading it. :)

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
DisruptiveDave 8y ago
Oh man. My two cents (many, many years of content writing). It's very difficult to write a high quality post in under an hour. In my mind, high quality = somewhat original, well thought out, required some level of research/citations, includes actionable advice, formatted properly, SEO-juiced appropriately, and proofread effectively. Not all blog posts need to be that in depth, however. I've produced a ton of medium quality posts and those can be done in under an hour, sometimes. And they have value. Side note - getting on HN and "you read the thing" aren't markers of high quality.
onion2k 8y ago
here we are on HN and you're reading it Unless you're in the business of generating blog post views or HN comments the fact that people are discussing it here is irrelevant. Those things are vanity metrics. They don't matter to your business. Your post could get 10,000 upvotes and a million comments, but if you don't get a sale from all that extra "brand awareness" you've still wasted an hour of your time.
- corobo 8y ago
  If you're the business entity sure. The person who wrote the article though has an ego and people reading, reacting, responding to the article all feed the ego. Vanity metrics are the only reason we do things after the base instincts
foobaw 8y ago
It's fair though to assume that the CEO knows the company metrics better than all of us. I'm assuming these 1-hour blog posts do move their metrics in a meaningful way and the HN thing was just banter. Also, the term "quality" is highly dependant on context. I wouldn't compare it to "The New Yorker," but rather other similar companies' blog posts.

BeetleB 8y ago

>Maybe there's a reason why Baremetrics writers aren't in the New Yorker That's a good thing. They want as many people to read as possible, and most of their audience will not have the patience to read a New Yorker piece.

lenm225 8y ago

Take it from another (former) very expensive copywriter: yes you can. But a blog post you'd hire a very expensive copywriter for and a blog post like the ones discussed in the article are quite different. That doesn't mean the latter aren't quality blog posts. Like another comment said, it depends on your audience (and, I'd add, more importantly, the purpose of the post).

rb808 8y ago

I think the thing for founders is they don't have time to spend more than an hour, but they have experience and viewpoints that are interesting to most people if they just put pen to paper (so to speak).