Lorelle,
I would suggest checking out http://hubpages.com/hub/ How-to-make-money-writing-online-stories-with-a-buy-local-approach Looks like a great new way to make money writing.

So about 2-3 hours for a single post. What is the ROI? Do you feel like you are adequately compensated, by whatever means, for those 2-3 hours?

I’ll be writing soon about ways to speed up post content generation, and it would be interesting to hear tips on how you’ve learned to speed up the process for yourself.

But when it came to write the whole post it take about 30 minutes to 1 hour.

B) Again it depends on the article itself. Some posts will take as little as 15-30 minutes while others may take hours and hours of research and writing (and testing out what I’m writing IRL).

And Hendry, you are so right. Without passion, your readers can tell you are “faking” it. Blogging should be fun, and for some, taking the time that you need to write the “right” blog post is fun. I love it when a blog post flows right out onto the screen in minutes. But I also love the time it takes to cultivate a concept fully over days if not weeks to just get it right.

Some of my long post took 4-6 hours, shorter ones were about 15-30 minutes.

I always believe passion should be part of your blog. What’s the point of blogging when you don’t enjoy it?

It is hard, if not impossible to fake empathy. Anyone who are into this for the long haul should make blogging fun.

My blog is about how ideas can be used beyond their original intent, so I may read a neat article and think about the central idea for a couple of weeks or longer before writing the blog about it. I’m always thinking about on weird idea or another. Obviously, the amount of research and linking I need to do determines the actual writing time, but I like to write it in my head, then type it out, then go back for any detail work like the links and references or stats.

Annoyingly some of my most popular posts are news items that took only minutes (I had a press release to work from). I can do those posts in 15 minutes tops.

But for a quality post I think the time comes from defining your point and then presenting your argument correctly. Those ones take much longer.

I tend to write longer than average…well, everything. I’d say about 30 minutes to an hour for an ‘average’ blog post including outlining and editing. Some take only 5 to 15 minutes, but those are usually the exception. More detailed posts (my usual blog fodder) take quite a bit longer and on some I spend an hour just tweaking the language and punctuation in the final version (I think I may have mentioned, I’m a writer who blogs, not a blogger who writes).

I have a notebook full of great ideas. I rarely have a shortage of those, but to do the post right (links, pictures, a proper outline & editing so it doesn’t get too long & rambly) takes a long time (2 hours or more)…so I tend to only get to those in between paying writing gigs (or when the job is really, really boring and I need a distraction).

I think blogging is great fun and allows me to be more creative than I get to be in the paying job (tech. writer), but I still consider it work. Fun work, but work.

Actually, smiley aside, that’s the truth. I’m still relatively new at this whole blogging thing but as of right now I have 6 posts that have broken the 15,000 page view mark. Of those 6, five of them were posts where I was so annoyed by whatever I was responding to that I wrote the whole thing in a “train of thought” style.

That being said, most take about an hour or so when you consider all the things you mentioned (basically initial thought to finished post). Plus, unless I’m emotionally compelled to do otherwise I have a rule of waiting a couple hours before posting. That way I can do one last edit. I’ve found I miss typos even when double checking if I just wrote a post. A couple hours is enough time for it to get sufficiently fuzzy in my head so I’m actually reading and not completing the sentences in my head.