BLOGTOBER: How do you do it?!

I witnessed some of Blogtober last year, but didn’t really grab the essence of it back then. Admittedly, I had only been blogging for a couple of months so the whole thing didn’t really grab my attention like it did this time. I was still figuring things out and wasn’t nearly as proud of my blog as I am today. I didn’t see how I could post every day. I didn’t even understand how people got their blogs to look so darn pretty.

I’m sure there are people now feeling the same way, or maybe you’re one of the newer bloggers who’s wondering what in hell’s name Blogtober is about? Psst, blogging every day for a month! Or, better yet, you’re just wondering how participants succeed at posting every day?

Well, I’m here to help you out a bit! Since I was known for posting every day for quite some time, I felt like a post like this one would be the right way to go. I think the longest I’ve kept it up was four months? It isn’t really a hard thing to do – you simply have to plan. Honestly. That’s what it comes down to.

“Of course it can’t be that easy,” is probably what you’re thinking and you’re right. There’s a whole lot hiding behind that small four-letter word.

1 ~ The first thing you want to do, is decide for what period of time you want to post daily. For this post, I’m obviously going with October since that’s what set this whole thing in motion to begin with!

2 ~ Time to google or create some kind of calendar! I simply googled an October calendar, printed it off and that’s that. You can go as creative with this as you want. If you have a bullet journal you want to use, why not? If you feel like drawing one yourself, sure! Want to use a spreadsheet? That’s also an option! Personally, I went with the easy and lazy way by using this one: [Courtesy of Google Image, yay.]

3 ~ Now, first of all, you want to fill in all the fixed memes and posts you’ll be posting. In my case, those were WWW Wednesdays, Top Ten Tuesdays, my September wrap-up, my November TBR and the announcement for November’s monthly challenge.

4 ~ Don’t forget to write down the reviews you have to post on time! It’s the perfect way to see what ARC’s you have yet to read / review as well – so that’s a bonus.

5 ~ Once you’ve done that, it’s time for the actual work to begin. Start by counting all the blank squares – that’s the amount of posts you have yet to come up with. Now you know what you’re working towards!

6 ~ Brainstorming session: started! Are you going with a specific theme? Are you posting about a variety of subjects? Now’s the time to decide and write down any idea you have – preferable on another sheet of paper or simply do so in your drafts! It’s what I do, since it also gives me the opportunity to easily expand on an idea. When I want to post about covers with a certain cover, I can immediately add those that come to mind – even as I’m still thinking of other ideas. I can’t run out of space!
Do mind not to limit yourself to the amount of post ideas you need. If you feel like writing down more ideas, just do so. You never know when they’ll come in handy.

7 ~ Got all those ideas ready? Then it’s time to connect them with a fixed date. By doing this immediately, you can make sure you aren’t posting on the same things more than once in a short period of time. Example: if you want to share Halloween costumes, share one each week and not all of them in the same week!

8 ~ Once you have that all figured out, it’s time to actually start writing posts. Try starting with the ones you need soonest – that way you’ll stay ahead of schedule, even if you’re suddenly short on blog prep time.

9 ~ Your drafts will explode for some time. Especially if you’re like me and you like jumping from one draft to the next, working on different ideas at the same time. Or maybe you leave editing for last. Or you don’t use the schedule-button and simply throw them online manually each day. It’s all possible. Just try not to get too overwhelmed with all the drafts! Give them titles, number them even if that’s what works best for you.

10 ~ One you’ve written, edited and scheduled a post, mark said post on your calendar as “done”. I’m using a highlighter for that, but I’m sure you can come up with prettier or more creative ways to tick off the boxes.

I think that’s pretty much it! I do believe you have to start a prep like this well in advance. Not everyone is able to come up with ten post ideas in a short period of time, let alone work through them and actually create the post. If you want to add images to that, you’ll need even more time. And if you’re focusing on a specific theme? Well, let’s just say you need to do some research as well. All these things take time, a whole lot of it.

Are you participating in Blogtober? How did your planning go exactly?
And if you’ve never posted daily for a longer stretch of time: would you ever consider doing it? What’s something you think you might struggle with?

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