How to Coordinate a Month and Work with Guest Bloggers

How to Coordinate a Month

  • Pick a topic. For topic ideas, there is a page in the Pages section which you can draw from or add to at any time.
  • To see if a topic has been recently used, see the page Blog Archive (monthly theme and coordinator).
  • When you’ve chosen your month and theme, please note it in the Posting Schedule. Also, record it (monthly theme and coordinator) in the Blog Archive  because it’s the only record we keep.
  • Monthly coordinators are responsible to write out the calendar dates for the month in the posting schedule.
  • You are responsible to get the days from Monday to Friday filled. Weekends are optional.
  • Often, we get guests to post with us. Having guests post with us increases our readership. These can be people you know locally or professionally. We have a data base of names in the Pages section if you need ideas. See: Guest Bloggers – Superstars; Guest Bloggers A-L; Guest Bloggers M-Z. You can add to these lists at any time.
  • When your month is finished, please delete it on the Posting Schedule.

Working with Guest Bloggers

  • Encourage a one week due date for guest posts. The one week due date is only a suggestion but you may need to help them strengthen their piece. There are instances when people blogging for the first time have written awkwardly (especially their beginnings, or they’re too tentative and apologetic) and you may wish to give them pointers to strengthen their piece. This helps them be better writers (and they want to be) and helps keep a certain standard in our quality. One week gives you enough time to deal with any issues such as following up with bios or pictures or other issues.
  • The format for guest blogs can be found in the POSTS section, not the PAGES section. Just type in guest blog in the search bar and you’ll see the format on a page titles Guest Posts. To copy and paste the grey box for the bio section, you need to do it in the text mode, not the visual mode.
  • To get it to say fictorians at the top of the post instead of your name, go back to ALl Pages, find the post and click on the quick edit button. Next,  click on the author button, and scroll until you see fictorians.

Suggested email content to a guest so that they know what we expect from them:

  • Word count – anywhere between 500 to 1,000 words is ideal. It can be a little longer if need be.
  • If you have any pictures to include, please ensure there aren’t any copyright issues. Book jackets and PR of that sort generally aren’t an issue. Pictures should be sent separately as jpegs and not in the body of the text as they cannot be copied into the system as one unit. If there is a requirement for special placement in the text, add it there for our information or make an obvious note.
  • Text should be single spaced with block paragraphs (not indented).
  • We write for PG 13 – general family level. That just means no offensive language, swearing etc.
  • If I could have your post at least one week (date) before it’s scheduled (date) that would be great.
  • Please inform your public and friends about your guest blog by whatever social media you use.
  • Please include a short bio and a picture (of yourself or a book jacket). The picture is optional.
  • You are welcome to respond to any and all comments (our metrics say we have a good readership base but comments are generally few although people can be encouraged to comment!). You can link to the site for promo purposes and you can copy and paste the interview to your site with credit to Fictorians.