As for successful bloggers having “an awful lot of time on their hands” … nobody would make that assumption about writing email. The best blog posts are essentially emails to the world, rather than to an individual. They are like mailings that addressed to “cc:world.” This does not require a lot of time, although it easily could.

I’m blogging less these days, since I am both running a development project (http://projectvrm.org) and writing a book. But even when I blogged many times per day, I tried to devote a half hour per day or less on blogging. That work has been highly leveraged. Consider this: I am the co-author of a bestselling business book (that still sells well, nine years after coming out), an editor of a magazine (http://linuxjournal.com) with a strong Web presence since 1994, a fellow at two university centers, a speaker at many events — and a blogger. Look me up on Google and the vast bulk of references to my work point to blog posts. Nothing I do has the same degree of leverage between effort and effect. I’m sure the same is true for David and his other favorite bloggers.

Best to all,

Doc