Writing my first 6-part series on this blog was like doing lab work for a college class.

Post #1: Saying NO to a prospective client may be the Best Business Move

Post #2: Avoid future problems by saying NO Now

Post #3: Investigate client/project before saying Yes — or making it a NO.

Post #4: Three main reasons to say NO to new client

Post #5: Saying NO is easy

Post #6: How to use LinkedIn to say NO to new business

It was a lot of work, but it wasn’t too difficult because I was following a plan decided upon ahead of time, and that plan was based on much of what I’ve learned blogging these 20 months.

So here goes:

10 blogging lessons from 20 months as a blogger

1. Success: Nothing is more inspirational than Success. How you define “success” is key. So just Doing It was “success” enough to keep Doing It.

2. Crowdsource: It is easier to come up with opinions of your own when you ask others for theirs first. That’s how I got a lot of content for the series from posting questions on LinkedIn and on my Facebook page.

3. Guest Posting: When you are assigned a topic by someone whom you respect, you feel responsible to do the best job you can do. I’ve been guest posting for Michael Cohn’s CompuKol blog for a few months now, and he wanted the story on How to Say NO to New Business. I admire his work and so I take his assignments very seriously.

4. Blog Length: People will read longer content if you break it up in some way. That can be with subtitles, lists, and quotes OR you can simply divide it up into six daily posts. [If you post a series with too many days in between, i.e., not daily, a regular reader may lose interest. That being said, how many of your readers are “regular” readers and how many just find you on any particular day because they used the “right” keywords to find your article.

5. Independence: “That” being said, when writing a series, each article needs to be able to stand alone . . . because it just may “stand alone” in someone’s visit to your blog.

6. Persistence: Writing is compulsory thought: stick with it and the words will come.

7. Education: You really learn something. As a teacher I came to realize early on that I never learned as much or as “deeply” until I taught a topic or skill. Same with blogging. When you write something, you come to know it better than if you simply read or talk about something.

8. Mastery: It’s easy to become something of an expert. A friend just blogged the definition of expertise from Wikipedia:  ” … a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study.” Works for me.

9. Flexibility: The best laid plans may need to make room for better ideas if you are lucky enough for them to come along. I started with the idea of only doing three posts in the series, but new ideas and new content kept cropping up.

10. Sometimes Less is More: Any series with more than six posts — or list with more than 10 items — may get short shrift;. either the writer runs out of steam or the reader gets bored.

What’s your experience writing or reading a series of posts? Do you like them? Why or why not?