What I wouldn't have given to have a blogging partner (or two) of late.

I just moved out of a house that I've lived in for 11 years. The 6 weeks preceding the move consumed more mental and physical energy than to which I'm accustomed… much more.

Because we hadn't yet hired a contractor to build a house on our lot, each and every item needed to be evaluated for its destination. Should it be sold, given away or packed? If it was to be packed, would it go into long-term storage, storage at the new building site or into the RV… for who knew how long? We had a garage sale, sold stuff online (eBay and Kijiji) and ran about a hundred trips to Value Village. By moving day, (poorly labelled) packed boxes lined the walls of almost every room.

And despite thinking that everything had been well organized, each day in the RV has involved a litany of ‘where is ____?' and ‘I can't find ____'. Add to that the “Hot as Hades” factor (42.5C/108.5F), an RV air conditioning unit that barely keeps up AND not one but TWO spotty Internet connections (satellite and MiFi).

Worst of all, I neglected my blogs for a month during the moving fray. I had wanted to queue up a bunch of articles that would be posted while I was busy. Turns out that ‘wanting' doesn't necessarily amount to ‘doing'.

I began to feel somewhat envious of my friend, Todd Farmer, who with his partners Tricia Meyer and Eric Nagel operate the Wine Club Group blog.

Think of the advantages of having a blogging partner or two.

• With input from more brains, the knowledge quotient should increase. That could mean brainstorming more and better ideas for topics about which to blog, and/or saving you the hassle of having to contend with the technical side of blogging if one of your partners happens to be a geek.
• The time and effort you invest in your blogging business should be reduced relative to the number of partners you have.
• You would also split all the business costs.
• Partners can motivate each partner to be more productive and therefore generate more revenue over the long term.
• Partners can attend conferences together, see every speaker during the event and later share what they learned with their other partners.
• You could plan breaks and vacations in advance and enjoy some relief in knowing that your blogging business will be handled if you need to tend to personal matters during an emergency.

Granted, blogging partnerships won't work in every case.

• Some folks might not be keen to share revenue.
• Distribution of effort might be unequal, leading to disagreements.
• Disagreements can happen between the best of friends / partners and ruin a business, as happened to Audrey van Petegem who wrote about her experience in an article on the Huffington Post.
• Partnerships probably won't work for those who blog is in their name. For example, this blog's URL is in my name, so a true partnership is out of the question. What works best for my blogging business model is guest bloggers.

All things considered, a blogging partnership might work for you, especially if you are just starting out and have concerns about your motivation, technical knowledge or writing.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

P.S. The ‘dogs' picture is of Kuper (on the left) and my dog, Jasper the Chocolate Labrador who would excel at partnerships because he shares so freely with his ball and other toys. I think he knows that sharing is good karma and at the end of the day he'll STILL have all the food and toys he could ever hope for. 🙂