If your blog mainly depends on daily news to keep it running, a slow news day can be your worst nightmare, particularly if you have a writing quota to fulfil.

Slow news days can cause negative thoughts:

• Is my niche area drying up?
• Have I missed some big news story that everyone else has?
• Have my news sources cut their supply?

There are various responses to a slow news day, and what action you take depends upon your blog, your temperament, your readership, and the time you have.

1. Do nothing

• Simply accept that there’s not much happening today.
• Believe there’ll be a news avalanche tomorrow.

2. Post opinion / forum / consumer views

• Move away from ‘hard fact’ journalism.
• Write personal opinion pieces on your niche.
• Find out what the buzz on relevant forums and newsgroups is, and form an article from that.

3. Stray from your niche

• Post news stories that are in some way related to your niche.

4. Revisit old news

• See if you can freshen up an old news story.

5. Publish an article you’ve written in advance

• Get into the habit of writing more generic content ahead of time that can be posted at short notice.

There’s a risk in any one or combination of these strategies that you’ll alienate a proportion of your readership.

You may get comments like

• “what’s this got to do with [niche]?”
• “why are you covering a story that’s been on the Net for weeks?”
• “why haven’t you posted about [subject]?”

You’ll just have to ride these comments.

If you write for someone else on a quota system, it helps if you have a flexible working relationship with them.

• Say that you’d rather post a fewer number of quality, relevant articles rather than posting rubbish to fulfil a quota.
• Say that some days you’ll post more than your quota if there’s a flood of news.
• Hopefully they’ll agree with you or suggest a widened niche to help you maintain your posting frequency.

Slow news days are not pleasant for sites that rely on fresh, factual content. Just remember that they don’t usually last for long.