I’m in the process of launching a new music blog with a number of co-authors. The content will focus around independent (unsigned) acts with news from bands, rated reviews of gigs, CDs, interviews etc.

In order to make the blog “work” for us content-wise, we’re devising an editorial calendar, much in the same way a magazine, newspaper or radio plot out days, weeks and months in advance when they’re content is going to hit and what is going to be published. Sure enough, there’s breathing room in the schedule for daily and flash news updates but for the most part we know that on X day reviews will be published, on Y day interviews will be published and on Z day competitions will be run.

We know this in advance and it gives our authors and blog editors the chance to prepare and release the content, or schedule the content in good time.

The same, however, can be applied to an individual blog, something which brought me back to a bookmarked post from Pureblogging back in May of this year.

The creation of a calendar or publishing timeline both creates and breeds consistency, one of the three points raised by the post.

In summary, an editorial calendar will

1. Increase your post quality
2. Improve your blogging consistency
3. Increase your RSS readers

While the first two speak for themselves (consistency, “practice makes perfect”), the third point is interesting. While there is no guarantee that any amount of posting can increase or decrease the number of RSS readers to your blog, the feeling here is that through anticipation of particular content you will garner subscribers eager to read the news as and when it hits - something we’re hoping will work for us in terms of anticipated reviews and interviews.

While we’ll likely use and sync iCal calendar entries during our weekly meetups, you might consider Google Calendar for yours? You can also sync gCal with your iPhone, iCal, Outlook and other calendar services and you can access it anywhere on the move.

I’ll let Michael Martine take it from here…

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