The Improved A to Z Plan

I’ve scrapped my original A to Z plan. I am not doing the challenge at Just Gene’O. I’m only doing it here, and I am throwing a generous amount of Tolkien into the mix so I can link to some of my Tolkien pals who I’ve promised to promote during A to Z.

If I’ve invited you to do a post, you are still invited. If we reached the point of a topic discussion, your topic is still good if you want to do it.  If you’ve changed your mind or decided not to accept, but haven’t mentioned it yet, please let me know.

Here is how Sourcerer will do A to Z.

• We will run our regular features in April at their normal morning times.
• We will follow those up with afternoon A to Z posts.
• I may post late photos and use them as a teasers for the next day on some days.
• This eliminates the need to rigidly structure the A to Z topics.

They still need to be pop culture posts. But, for instance, we don’t necessarily have to make all our Wednesday A to Z posts comics posts. So everyone who’s agreed to write one can keep their topics if they still want in, but I’m committing to writing as many of the posts myself as necessary.

These posts will need to be short and light so as not to step on the early post and hopefully generate scroll-down reads. Ideally, they’ll be less than 400 words and will link to one or two other posts either here or at a friend’s blog

Reasoning, etc.

• If some of our contributors need to take a break to get through A to Z at their own blogs, me guaranteeing A to Z here ensures we will have at least one post a day in April.
• Our contributors and the people I invited are welcome, but I’ll do any or all of the posts and if you’d like to adjust days or topics, I am open to that.
• I’m not straight-up asking any regular contributor for more posts, and I do not want to suspend the morning post routine once we get it rolling again.
• The original idea is way cool, but it has too many moving parts. We can pull it off, but we aren’t to the point of doing smoothly yet. I don’t want to overextend myself or anyone else.
• My concern here isn’t lack of support. I have the support, but not sure the original plan is good for us long-term.
• Given the changes I’ve made at both blogs, their relative sizes, and the Facebook progress, posting every day in April at Just Gene’O will only help a little and it will only help me.
• Bringing A to Z readers to Sourcerer every day in April will help the larger project and will help a lot of other bloggers.

Keep in mind my goal here. It’s Sourcerer I want readers for the most. My entire social media is set up to serve that end. I’m happy with 30 to 60 daily views at my personal blog forever as long as a high percentage of my readers are friendly bloggers and as long as Sourcerer is growing.

Sourcerer is now set up to be inviting and mobile-friendly. The archives are so well-indexed with pull-down menus that a person who is interested in any part of what we do here can get lost in them for hours. It’s designed to attract social media followers and to help people discover contributors’ blogs.

Close friends and contributors who do the challenge can have their own A to Z headlines displaying in sidebar widgets at Sourcerer. I am already set up with lists to give A to Z and friends who do it my full support on Twitter and on Facebook. I am primed to register the second the list goes live. Think about that for a minute.

The best course is to only register one blog, make sure it succeeds without overtaxing me or anyone else, and reblog selected A to Z posts at my own blog for friends. I want an A to Z Survivor badge for Sourcerer so much I can taste it.

This is my personal survivor badge. I earned it fair and square. No one can take it away from me. Sourcerer needs one of these.

Just a note about my planning methods for those of you who follow along. When I plan months in advance, I always make the biggest realistic plan possible with the full knowledge that it will probably need to be scaled back. I do that because I never know when 100 people might jump on board and help me pull off something huge. When it’s time to get serious, I think about contingencies, take stock of my capacity, and adjust. I don’t get bummed out when I need to scale back. I’m just grateful I have enough people on board with me to make the planning worthwhile.

This is a minor adjustment. No worries.

But do let me know where we are on the A to Z if you’ve been involved up to this point.

I need to have this figured out in the next month so I know how many posts I need to write my ownself. 🙂