Here is part 2 of Savannah Cordova’s guest post on content calendars. Be sure to read last week’s post, “What Is a Content Calendar? A Beginner’s Guide” if you missed it.

Savannah is a writer and content marketer with Reedsy, a platform that connects authors and publishers with the world’s best editors, designers, and marketers. In her spare time, Savannah enjoys reading contemporary fiction and writing short stories.

How to Create Your Perfect Content Calendar

“Developing an online presence” is a staple book marketing tip for indie authors these days. That’s because, in the very saturated indie book market, self-published authors need a way to distinguish themselves from the crowd — and building an online presence can be a great way to do so. But how?

Well, one ever-popular tactic is to take to social media or a personal blog to post meaningful, interesting content that people like. If you can connect with prospective readers on a personal level, their interest, time, and money are far more likely to find their way to your published titles.

You’ll be in good company, too! For instance, bestselling nonfiction author Austin Kleon posts regularly about the creative process and his personal interests on his blog. And Veronica Roth of the Divergent series cleverly hosts her blog on Tumblr — a place where her target demographic already spends time.

We’ve already covered the what and why of content calendars in the first post of this series.

So now let’s dive into the how. Before you start working on a content calendar, your first step should be to…

1. Take stock of your current content efforts

Before you nail down a content calendar, take a moment to observe the lay of your digital land.

• What does your online presence currently look like?
• Do you blog, and if so, how often?
• What social media platforms are you using?
• How are you using them?
• Are you more active on some than others?
• Do you receive more public engagement on some than others?
• Should you/will you continue to use all of them?
• What purpose do each of them serve?

If you’re starting from square one, you have a clean slate! If you’ve already been publishing content on a number of different platforms, this is a good chance to seriously consider where you want to concentrate your efforts — whether on one, two, or several platforms.

2. Establish what kind of content you want to publish

This might seem like an obvious step, but it bears saying. Before you actually put pen to paper, you should concretely define what kind of content you intend to send out into the world: blog posts, podcasts, videos, newsletters, social media posts, or images?

Know your limitations here. If your only means of recording a podcast is the voice memos app on your phone, the quality of your episodes will not be great. You’d be much better off spending that time and energy on a different type of content instead.

Most importantly, know your goals. Is it to establish a mailing list where you can easily market your books? If that’s the case, setting up a website and blogging will likely be your best bet, as you can encourage users to sign up for your newsletter. Or perhaps your goal is to simply interact with readers, in which case a social media platform that provides more of a conversational setting should be at the top of your list.

3. Decide how often you intend to publish content

Every step in this post comes with the advice to be realistic — but it’s said with the most significance here! Of course, you can always increase or decrease the number of weekly content you schedule into your calendar, once you get the ball rolling. But you don’t want to load it up right off the bat, struggle to keep up, and lose steam right away. And don’t underestimate how helpful it will be to track the time you’re taking to produce these posts.

Also, keep in mind that not all platforms are created equal in terms of how often you should post. For instance, if you’re planning to blog on your website and also use Instagram, the former will not needed to be updated as regularly as the latter.

This handy blog post from Sprout Social (a social media management software) can help you decide what date and time to publish content.

4. Decide how detailed your calendar should be

Unlike our previous tip to start slow and build in terms of the frequency of your schedule, we’re suggesting the opposite approach here for your calendar’s nuts and bolts: start by making your calendar more detailed than you think you need. This will help keep you on track and encourage you to get into the swing of developing new content. If you find it’s overkill to include the exact copy for each of your scheduled Facebook posts in your calendar, you can remove and adjust as needed. But better to have too much than too little, which can result in scrambling for details later — especially if you’re delegating to someone else.

The above steps are the basics, forming the “calendar” aspect of your content calendar. Next, it’s time to turn your focus to the actual content. Here are a few tips to do just that.

Tips for deciding what kind of content to publish

Consider reader intent

By “reader intent,” we mean: why do readers look for author content? What makes someone decide to subscribe to an author’s blog or like them on social media? What are they looking for? Perhaps it’s a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process. Maybe it’s for sneak peeks at an upcoming book. Maybe it’s to learn more about the backstory of their favorite characters. Maybe it’s too learn more about an author’s specific area of expertise.

If you’ve written a book and perused writing blogs while doing so, you will have come across the advice to “write to market” numerous times. Well, a similar concept applies here. Determine why people will want to engage with you online, and incorporate those reasons into your content planning.

Consider reader interest

There’s a difference between reader intent and reader interest. Reader intent is the reason they find your content. For instance, if you have an Instagram account where you post tips for writing science fiction, and someone sits down intending to learn more about writing science fiction…  well, that intent will be a helpful factor in connecting that person to your content.

However, it’s the interest that person takes in your content that will ultimately encourage them to continue coming back to your content. So keep an eye on what kinds of content encourage subscribers, likes, comments, views — whatever metric you’re using to determine interest level. Make a note to spend more time on that kind of content.

Think about “clusters”

Does this sound familiar to you? You’re reading a blog post and come across an interesting point that links to another blog post. You open the linked blog post and make a point to read it later. When you do, you find another interesting link, so you open that one to read later. A few hours pass and you realize you’ve just dived down a rabbit hole of related and linked blog posts. This is the power of clusters!

Here’s how you can utilize clusters to your benefit: let’s say you’re writing a blog post about “the realities of being an aspiring author.” Then you write another post on “the best tools for any author’s arsenal.” Then another one on “books to inspire indie authors.” You link from the first post to the second and third, the second post links to the first and third, so on and so forth. By publishing a “cluster” of posts that relate to one another, you’ve now created the opportunity for someone reading your content to continue engaging with your content.

Content calendar examples

These are examples of large brands, so your calendar will likely be on a smaller scale. Still, it never hurts to take pointers from the pros!

National Geographic’s Editorial Calendar

Coschedule’s Content Calendar

Hubspot’s Content Calendar

Condé Nast Traveller Content Calendar

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