How To Create a Blogging Editorial Calendar on a Spreadsheet

Today I've been working on setting up my blogging editorial calendar for the final four months of this year. Blogging, especially blogging on multiple sites, as I do, requires the same kind of pre-planning that goes into creating a magazine that will be published monthly. I need to keep my blogs up-to-date and filled with useful content that will really help my readers.

I created my blogging editorial calendar using Excel. I once used a WordPress editorial calendar plugin however found it to be too simplistic for my needs. It doesn't allow for pre-planning on multiple blogs; I had to access the calendar on each individual blog, so I found it confusing. I need everything represented on one page.

Each year I start a new Excel file for blog organization, and the editorial calendar is one page of that file. Other pages are for notes on various blogs and aspects of my blogging work. I create a new file annually because I've had Excel files cease working in the past, due to being overly used. It can be a huge challenge when the file that stops working contains a record of your annual business expenses for the last five years!

Here's the page for my blogging editorial calendar. If you would like to have a copy of this to help create or design your own editorial calendar, just click on the image. Below this, you'll find explanations of the sections I use.



Date Posted: The day this project is completed.

Platform: What blog (or YouTube channel, for vlogging)

Post Type: See the "Types" page in the spreadsheet.

Category: What category in your blog will this fit into? Blogger.com blogs refer to categories as "labels."

Proposed Title: Suggest a possible title. Change later if need be.

Sources: Where will you get your information for the post? ie: research, experience, etc.

Graphics: Where will you get your images?

Multimedia Needed: What do you need?

Request: At the end of the article, will you ask your reader for something?

The rest, in small font, are the social media platforms you plan to use to let people know about your new article or video. ...

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Finished Video: Review of "One Zentangle a Day"

I finished my video yesterday and uploaded it to YouTube. There were still a few things I could have done better - but let's face it - this is just a simple YouTube video and for me, these videos are all learning experiences. At some point you have to quick picking at it and upload it to YouTube, then move on to another project.

I struggled with learning the software programs, Audacity and Adobe Premiere Elements 13 - but this video project taught me a lot. The next one should be easier if I keep up the momentum to continue making videos regularly.

One Zentangle a Day
by Beckah Krahula
Buy at Amazon

This is the book I reviewed: One Zentangle a Day by Beckah Krahula. I'm still working my way through the book, but I did enough to feel confident in recommending the book for anyone interested in learning how to do Zentangle art. This is essentially a thirty-minute per day form of meditation through focus on artistic process. It is easy to learn, and practical to use.



Thirty minutes of artistic focus calms and de-stresses us, and that's a good thing.

You might notice, if you go to the YouTube page for this video, that I included a lot of text on that video page. I'm doing that to help the search engines classify and understand my YouTube pages. I also place text in the Closed Captions (CC) section as it helps search engines rank a page as well.

I appreciate all subscriptions to my YouTube channel. As of today, I have sixty-two subscriptions - which isn't very many! I guess not too many people are interested in seeing an old lady's videos. YouTube seems more successful for the youth culture - with young teenagers getting thousands of subscriptions. To be young and beautiful helps, and they appeal to young YouTube users - teenagers - who have plenty of time to watch youth videos about topics important to them, like what makeup to use, or what clothes to wear.

Well, God bless them... and all that. I wish them well. But I'm still hoping to make my YouTube channel something older people (or anyone) would like to subscribe to.

After reviewing all the videos I made last year, I noticed my book review videos were getting more hits than any of the others, so I will be making more of them. After all, I'm the "Book Lady" on YouTube now. I love this persona.

The Newbery Challenge Rides Again!

I'm back to the Newbery Challenge! Almost twenty years ago I decided to read all the Newbery books, and now I'm inspired to get going on that again. So far I've read 42 out of 89 books, so I'm not even half-way there, and that's just the Newbery Medal WINNERS. I haven't counted the honor books and how many of them I've read. One of these days, I will. When I feel like I have more time on my hands, I guess.

I was inspired to read more of the Newbery books because I'm updating my Newbery pages online, starting with my page for the 1920's. My next job will be to do the page for the 60's, starting today. The reason why is that the 60's page is getting a lot more traffic than the other pages, so the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I also started a blog for recording my impressions of the books I'm reading. I'll also be reviewing indie and small press books for teens and children. Yay!! I have a thing for children's literature!

I'm starting with the first Newbery book: The Story of Mankind ... it is a history book! In subsequent years fiction took over as the most common type of book honored by the Newbery Medal, but occasionally there are non-fiction books chosen as honor books. Some of them are excellent, too!

I've read enough books from the Newbery list to know that some of them are great and some, you just wonder why they were ever published, let alone chosen for this honor. As a writer of children's and teen's literature I believe luck and "who you know" count for something. And I read the good, the bad, and the ugly because it is all instructional for my career.

What's got me excited is that I have found communities of people doing the Newbery Challenge... one great group is at Goodreads, and I found out about 2 children's librarians (guys) that are doing a Newbery challenge with videos. I will also be doing videos!

My Daughter Wants My Attention

I've had a rough day. My daughter is a teenager. I love her to pieces but I get frustrated.

For example today she sent me some bad IMail messages. I ignored them so she came out here and unplugged my computer when I was in the middle of doing something. I pointed out I was totally innocent of doing anything to provoke her messages or other behavior... she finally apologized but continued to want my attention, etc.

Lots of time spent with her.

Then she went to her bedroom... I just had to go back there to see if she was okay and then she trapped me in her bedroom. Big mistake to go in there!