How to Manage a Multi-Author Digital Publication with @Shawn_Hessinger #vcbuzz

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How to Manage a Multi-Author Digital Publication with @Shawn_Hessinger #vcbuzz

Managing a blog is tough but managing a multi-author blog is much more difficult!

There’s so much to keep track on, quickly fill in the gaps, promote, edit, etc.

How to make that happen?

Let’s discuss

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About @Shawn_Hessinger

@Shawn_Hessinger is the Executive Editor at @smallbiztrends, a website and community offering news, resources and advice for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital editor? Please share your career story!

I spent about 11 years in the newspaper business, the last year as managing editor for nine local newspapers.

After that, I began providing blogging services for clients eventually landing jobs at an online trade publication and finally at Small Business Trends.

I think a lot of the skills learned in journalism are translatable to managing websites. But they also can be learned by those without such a background.

Q2 What is your editing process? How do you make sure all content is timely edited and maintains high quality standards?

Small Business Trends employs a team of editors both in the United States and overseas to carefully manage every step in the editing process.

Our team in Ethiopia carefully loads articles, images and graphics to be reviewed by our site’s editor. Strategy is handled by an upper management team including myself and our publisher, Anita Campbell.

Myself, our editor in chief Joshua Sophy and a team of three more in Ethiopia plus our SEO manager.

Our writers come from around the world — India, the U.S. Canada, Africa and UK. I don’t know if there is a country I’d say is best. We focus on strong writers from where ever they may be.

Being clear is more important than being clever. I often tell writers this.

Q3 How do you deal with easily offended writers? Have you ever seen genuinely offended authors?

The best way to deal with writers is with a well defined process and clear policies for what is acceptable and unacceptable in your publication.

The more detailed your policy, the better. This manages a writer’s expectations and gives you a clear way to explain any decisions that may upset them.

It’s a question of balancing these issues against the needs of your site. Regardless, you will have something to stand on when requesting changes.

So true, Gail. Some writers ignore these guidelines. But you can refer to them when requesting changes. My experience is they eventually get the picture.

Q4 How to find good writers?

Honestly our best writing candidates have come via calls for writers placed on our own website. I really suspect the reason for this is that these writers are familiar with our publication already.

Though, I certainly have also found great writers through recommendations from other publishers and through social media contacts.

Q5 What are your favorite editing and blog management tools?

WordPress’s calendar and editorial process are the easiest tools to provide your team with a transparent view of the editing process.

We also use Zoho tools to manage and track assignments to writers and Surfer SEO to create longer optimized content.

I really believe the best tools are those that give your entire team a bird’s eye view of the process.

Just checked with our CTO. It’s a plugin called WordPress Editorial Calendar.

We also use Zoho tools to manage and track assignments to writers and Surfer SEO to create longer optimized content.

I really believe the best tools are those that give your entire team a bird’s eye view of the process.

Our previous multi-author management chats:

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