The cassette review is nearly ready, but no one can tell where its track order came from: the sleeve, the audio files, or a copied listing. If the answer is buried in an inbox, the error may reach publication. An editorial workflow gives that question a place to wait—and someone the responsibility to answer it.
For a small independent music site, this needn't mean a manual. A one-page workflow, a short checklist, and a status line for each piece can show who has the draft, what still needs checking, and what must happen before publication. The point isn't to account for every minute. It's to keep decisions and uncertainties from disappearing as a piece changes hands, or when someone returns to it weeks later.
Start with the actual path a piece takes
Write down the stages you already use before adding new ones. A review might go from an agreed assignment to listening and drafting, then to an edit, answers from the writer, and a final check in the publishing system. An interview needs room for recordings or notes, quotation checks, any agreed review of factual details, and image permissions. A short news item may move quickly, but it still needs a source and a final review.
Describe each stage as a handoff. “Editing” doesn't tell anyone whether the editor is restructuring the draft, checking claims, or waiting for an answer. “Editor reviewing draft; questions due from writer” identifies the next action. This matters even if one person does every job: when they come back to a draft as its editor, they need to see what they left unresolved as its writer.
A workable set of stages might be:
- Agreed: the angle, format, intended scope, and owner are clear.
- In progress: listening, reporting, research, or drafting is under way.
- Submitted: the draft and supporting notes are available to the editor.
- In edit: the editor is working through structure, language, and open questions.
- Awaiting response: a named person has specific questions to answer.
- Ready for final check: revisions are settled, but publication details still need review.
- Published: the live page has been checked and its location recorded.
Use fewer stages if some distinctions don't help. A status should tell a colleague what can happen next, not just fill out a tracker. “Awaiting response” needs a named person and a question beside it; otherwise, it can become a permanent parking place.
Keep the workflow document to one page
For each stage, the document should answer four questions: what starts it, who acts, what they produce, and what lets the piece move on. That makes the process repeatable without assuming every article follows the same route. A shared document or plain-text file is enough, provided everyone can find the current version.
At “submitted,” for instance, require a draft, sources or reference materials, and a short note on anything the writer couldn't verify. At “ready for final check,” require resolved queries, approved copy, and available image information. These are conditions for moving on, not good intentions. If something is missing, the piece stays where it is unless someone assigns and records an exception.
Keep advice on writing criticism elsewhere. A style guide can cover spelling and terminology; a source-checking guide can explain how to assess a claim. The workflow says when those checks happen, where open questions go, and who decides they've been resolved. That boundary makes the document easier to use on a busy publishing day.
A compact workflow entry
One stage can fit in four lines:
- Stage: Ready for final check
- Owner: publishing editor
- Check: compare the final page with approved copy; inspect credits, embeds, image permissions, and display on a phone
- Move on when: corrections are made or logged, and the editor approves publication
There's an action and an endpoint, with no prescribed software or large staff implied.
Separate the workflow from the record for each piece
The workflow describes the usual route. A piece record shows where one article is along it. Mix the two and the procedure fills with one-off notes, while status labels start meaning different things to different editors.
For each piece, record what someone would need to take over the next step:
- Working title and format, such as review, interview, or reported feature.
- Named owner and current stage.
- Next action, the person responsible, and any relevant agreed date.
- Location of the current draft and supporting material.
- Open questions, with a clear indication of which ones block publication.
- Final publication date and live page location, once published.
Dates help when they reflect a real dependency, such as a contributor's promised response. Don't fill the record with speculative deadlines. And “check all facts” is too broad to count as an open question. “Confirm whether the sleeve and supplied audio list the final two tracks in the same order” is a task someone can finish.
Use a spreadsheet, shared board, or individual document—whichever contributors will actually keep up to date. If every small change takes several extra clicks, the tracker will lag behind the work. What matters is knowing which record is authoritative. When edits happen in email, comments, and chat, copy the decision back to that record.
Make uncertainty visible without turning notes into published claims
Materials for experimental music writing can be incomplete or inconsistent. A sleeve may present Japanese text differently from a distributor's listing; an upload may omit credits found on the physical edition. The workflow should let a writer mark a detail “unconfirmed” rather than guess.
Use three labels in the piece record: confirmed, pending, and omit unless verified. Note the evidence behind a confirmation, especially for a detail someone may question later. A description of the sound can come from attentive listening; a claim about who performed needs a reliable credit or another appropriate source. The record doesn't have to reproduce every source, but it should point the editor to what was used.
For a review of a small-run release, a note could read: “Track order confirmed against the sleeve; contributor credit pending; omit the credit if no confirmation arrives before publication.” That is an editorial decision, not a failed attempt to complete the draft. It also tells the next editor that the missing credit hasn't simply been overlooked.
Don't put sensitive material in a broadly shared tracker. Keep unpublished contact details, private correspondence, unreleased audio, and off-the-record remarks somewhere restricted. The tracker can say “editor to verify permission for quoted correspondence” without exposing the correspondence itself. The workflow should specify who can access the material and how access is removed when a contributor's involvement ends.
Build a final check around preventable errors
The final review should be short enough to use every time and specific enough to catch mistakes. It isn't a second full edit. Read the page as a reader will see it, then check the details most likely to have shifted when the copy entered the publishing system.
Before publication
- Confirm that the headline, standfirst if used, and body make compatible claims.
- Check names, release titles, labels, dates, credits, and track names against the material cited in the piece record.
- Resolve comments and remove private editorial notes from the public page.
- Check that quotations retain their context and that any required permissions are recorded.
- Inspect image captions, alt text, credit lines, and permission status.
- Test audio embeds and inspect the page on a narrow screen.
- Confirm the intended publication date and category before making the page live.
Adjust the list for the work at hand. An essay about field recordings may need to distinguish what the writer heard from what the artist says was recorded. A festival report may need another check of performer names and the order of events. Not every review has an image or embed; mark those checks “not applicable” rather than leaving it unclear whether anyone considered them.
Check the live page once more after publication. An embed may fail, a caption may move, or a heading may wrap badly even when the preview looked fine. Log corrections in the piece record with the date and what changed. Minor formatting fixes needn't become public notices, but a change to a material factual claim may call for a visible correction. Name the person who makes that judgment.
Give exceptions a route, not a loophole
The ordinary route won't fit every piece. A time-sensitive announcement may need to go up before a full feature edit; a contributor may be unreachable when an ambiguity turns up. Decide how to handle those cases before urgency quietly wipes out the checks.
Set a minimum for every publication: when possible, someone other than the writer reviews it; factual claims have traceable support; unresolved claims are removed or qualified; and publication permissions are clear. If a small site can't provide a second reader for a post, record that limitation and give the writer extra time for a final review. Don't call a rushed first pass a completed edit.
An exception note can be brief: “Published as a short announcement with editor's factual check; listening-based assessment deferred.” It keeps reporting that something exists separate from claiming to have assessed its sound. A fuller piece, if it follows, can take the normal route.
Record pauses as well. A review might be held because the available audio is incomplete, or an interview because image permission is unclear. Mark the piece “on hold,” name what would let work resume, and set a date to reconsider its place in the schedule. Otherwise, old drafts can look like active assignments long after their purpose has passed.
Test the document against one real piece
Don't ask everyone to reconstruct months of old work. Take the next article entering edit and follow it to the live page. Whenever someone has to ask where a file is, who owns a decision, or whether a check happened, note the gap. Add only the instruction that's missing; a real handoff will show you more than a list of imagined problems.
Ask the writer and editor separately whether the status described the piece accurately at each handoff. If they read “ready” differently, tighten the condition for moving on. If a stage gets skipped every time with no consequence, remove it or put its check elsewhere. And if a decision happens in conversation, add a one-line record afterward. There's no need to ban conversation.
Review the workflow periodically, but change it for a reason: a new format, a credit repeatedly missed, or a recurring bottleneck. Date or number the current version so an old checklist doesn't circulate unnoticed. Explain the practical reason for a new rule. “Image permission must be recorded before final check” is more useful than “improve asset handling.”
For the next draft in the queue, make a record with its working title, stage, owner, and next action. If that action is “confirm the performer credit on the cassette sleeve,” assign it to someone. Leave the piece where it is until they record the answer—or the decision to omit the credit.