Editorial Planning

For one guy who also manages to run a successful business, I generate a fair amount of content. That does not happen by accident. I have an editorial plan and I constantly refine said plan. If you have a blog where you don’t publish regularly (like this blog was until July 1, 2010), you know how sometimes weeks or even months pass between posts. For me at least, that is no longer acceptable.

Editorial planning is essential for blog success

This is not the world’s most read blog; not even close actually. I’m 99% okay with that. (Yes, 1% of me would love a million readers a month.) This blog is the platform for much of my business success over the last year or so. I also know exactly why – because I had and continue to have a plan. I made a decision to write on a set schedule, not just when I felt like it. Sometimes that means writing the posts is hard – you know, like work. That’s okay with me because those turn out to be posts that I learn from the most.

There are those who argue you should only post when you have something awesome to say and should never phone a post in. I agree with the second part 100%. My problem with the first part is how do we define “awesome?” I can tell you that what I write here on any given day is the best I’ve got on that day. That means you get to see me at my best and, yes, sometimes at my not so best. That’s the real me, folks.

Since I began blogging on a schedule, the success of this blog has improved using any measurement I have at my disposal. More of you stop by and read every day. More of you subscribe to the RSS feed. More of you comment on the posts here. More of you reach out to me via the contact form. More of you hire me to speak. More of you even click on and purchase the affiliate products I represent.

My editorial plan

After a nine day break to end last year and start this year, I began publishing again on a daily basis. On this blog, I am skipping weekends for now. That allows time to put together at least one post a month for ColorMetrix and Information Products Selling. Posts for those two sites take me four or five times longer to write than the ones on this blog. Those posts are real work because they require research and fact checking.

Here, you pretty much get my gut feelings about what is on my mind at any given moment. Each weekend, I do think about the upcoming week and come up with five or six post ideas/titles. I’m working hard to be writing a week ahead again. This isn’t so much for me, but for the sanity of my awesome editor. It hardly seems fair to dump a post on her at 5 p.m. that needs to publish at 4:30 a.m. the next morning. So, I write when I can. If possible, I write two or three posts at a time. There’s nothing like a three-hour flight to catch up on blogging!

I’m Jim Raffel, hear me roar! – A silly comment? Yes, but the reality is that with an editorial plan, I now reach a larger audience. See why it might make sense to publish on a schedule?