The following two forms are used by some editors to assist in planning magazine issues. These examples are easy to adapt to the specifications of individual magazines.
Article planning sheet
This sheet is intended to be given to magazine staff members to help them prepare for planning meetings. The questions may be adapted to the kind of articles you are looking for. Click here to see a sample of the article planning sheet in PDF format.
Tips for a successful planning meeting
- Ask your staff to prepare for the meeting and give them plenty of advance notice—at least one month.
- Give them a list of questions to answer (see article planning sheet). Or, have them ask questions of people they know who are similar to your readers.
- Get away from the office. Hold your planning meeting in a conference room in a hotel. Or meet in someone’s home, or a local church, or even go to a park. This is important because it gets everyone away from ringing phones and the pressures of immediate responsibilities. And, a new environment promotes creative thinking.
- Consider going on a field trip. Take the staff to a bookstore, a library, or a newsstand for one hour and ask them to write down 10 ideas that could be adapted for your magazine.
- Ask the staff to pray ahead of time for God’s wisdom, guidance, and creative ideas in the meeting.
Magazine chart
This chart is meant to be used after the planning meeting. When you have some
good article ideas and they have been refined, you will need to see how
they fit into your plans for your magazine. Your chart will be based on
the content of your magazine. Click here to see a sample of a magazine chart in PDF format.
The magazine chart shown is for a magazine with five feature articles and four regular departments. There is an informal chart for the feature articles. In each issue, the editors try to have an article on prayer, one on evangelism or missions, one on growth, and an interview. These are not labeled as departments in the magazine. The informal chart just helps the editors maintain balance.
The magazine chart shown is for a magazine with five feature articles and four regular departments. There is an informal chart for the feature articles. In each issue, the editors try to have an article on prayer, one on evangelism or missions, one on growth, and an interview. These are not labeled as departments in the magazine. The informal chart just helps the editors maintain balance.
Some things to consider as you work your plan
1. Balance it vertically.
- See if there any repeated topics in any given issue. For example, in the sample chart, the March/April issue has two articles on lying, and the July/August issue has three articles related to money (“Joy of giving,” “Spouses disagree on $,” and “Teaching stewardship”). Unless the articles are to comprise a special topical issue, the editor should switch two of these to other issues to avoid repetition.
- Make sure there is a variety of styles and tones in each issue. In other words, is there a good mixture of approaches (first-person, how-to, Bible teaching)? Is there a good balance of “heavy,” convicting articles and encouraging articles? You might want to add symbols to your chart to signal what approaches the articles take.
- Are you giving readers enough variety? For example, in the family department, March/April and May/June both have child-related articles. You might switch one of them with another article for more balance of child and adult-related themes.
- Do you want to include holiday-related articles, for example, Christmas- or Easter-related themes?
- Are there seasons that are more appropriate for some articles? For example, an article on depression might be most relevant during the winter months, or an article on missions trips during the months when people would be making their vacation plans.