How to Schedule Posts

Yesterday one of my tips for Top Ten Tuesday was for bloggers to schedule their posts ahead of time.  It saves on a lot of stress and means your blog will still have content even if you are too busy one week (or one month!) to read or review.  At the suggestion of Laura from Colorimetry, I am outlining here some advice on how to make a schedule that works for you!

1.   You need content to schedule.  This means you’re going to have to read.  If you have something like summer vacation when you read more than during the school year, take advantage of it.  Write reviews soon after reading the book—or at least take really good notes—but don’t get excited and post them right away.  Save them!  You can also write a lot of memes ahead of time, as the blogs running them will often list the topics or questions several weeks in advance.

2.  Decide what your schedule will be.  Do you want to post once a week?  Four times a week?  Will you always post reviews on Wednesdays and a meme on Saturday?  Having a regular schedule means that both you and your followers will always know what is going on, and they will know when to check back for new content.

3.  Get a calendar.  If you have something on your computer like Windows Calendar you can use, do it!  Seeing your posts visually laid out means you can make sure you don’t review 5 vampire books in a row.  Using a calendar on your computer instead of on paper means you can easily move titles to a different date if something comes up—like an author wants you to review their book the week before it is released.  If you have different types of post you are scheduling, feel free to color-code them.  Here is a week of my calendar from March:

4.  Figure out how the scheduling feature on your blogging platform works.  On WordPress, you can change the date a post is published in the little box near the top right corner of the post you are editing.  Make sure you press “OK” beneath the date.  Then make sure you hit “Schedule” (which will replace the normal “Publish” button).  Otherwise you’ll just have a draft.  Here are instructions for Blogger.

5.  Relax!  Schedules can be broken.  Even though you have dedicated followers, they will understand if you get busy or get behind—because they do, too!  And no law will be broken if you suddenly decide to do a review on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.

Top Ten Tuesday (24)

Top Ten Tuesdays is a meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This week we are listing

Top Tens Tips for New Bloggers

1. Don’t be afraid to comment on other blogs! Most bloggers are really friendly, and a lot will comment on your blog in return!

2. Schedule!  Scheduling posts ahead of time is a great way to make sure you post regularly and that you don’t get behind if you ever have a particularly busy week.

3. Participate in memes (but not too many!).  Postings memes like this one is a great way to get visitors to your blog and to make sure there is content on your blog, since you probably don’t read fast enough to post four reviews a week.  Don’t do too many memes, though, or people might think your blog is just a lot of filler.

4.  Participate in events.  You can enjoy blogging a lot more by participating in events like read-alongs or reading challenges.  There are often giveaways attached, too!

5.  Make sure your follow button is visible, preferably near the top of the page.

6.  Make following by email an option.  Not everyone uses your blogging platform and not everyone uses GFC.  Email is a great option for following that many bloggers don’t enable.

7.  Don’t clutter your sidebars.  Make sure you have important information, but don’t hide it with too many fun gadgets!

8.  Make sure your blog is readable.  Crazy fonts or colors can be hard to read.  Background music is distracting.

9.  Include a page with links to all your previous reviews (I like alphabetical lists) so people can browse them easily.

10.  Have fun!  Never think of blogging as a chore.  Never think you “have” to post or that there are particular books you “have” to review.