But I think it depends on what your interests are and what catches your attention whether you even notice things about some blogs. I’m sure my blogs bore a lot of people and they take no more then a quick glance so probably wouldn’t even notice if I did have some sort of cool contest going on….no I don’t and haven’t yet LOL,..just and example.

I personally don’t participate in many contests because most of them require you to post something on your blog about it, and since I already do PPP I don’t want my blog to be too full of ad type stuff that it turns people off from looking at my blog at all. So I pick and choose which ones I am going to participate.

So no, I don’t think bloggers are self centered, doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong about it, we’ve just probably had different experiences thus far in the world of blogging

This is where new blogs have the advantage. The trick is to bring a fresh approach and to market it well.

At this stage of my life, I blog for the sheer enjoyment of it. If I were looking to make money I would be in the poor house by now. Thanks again Will.

Flo – I am glad you got something out of the post – that is the aim. Welcome and please return again.

cheers all
les

Blogging overall is not what people think. The big success stories are often those who stared early. Some have tremendously valuable content, others have content not different than thousands of other blogs, they were just early to the party, so to speak. If you want a daily site to read that makes you laugh, and you have one in your reader that works, why would you be interested in the thousands of other funny sites that came along after. There are now so many blogs that if a person was to subscribe to even 5% of what they find interesting and of quality, they would soon overload their reader. Even most of what is subscribed to does not get read. I talked to someone recently who subscribes to about 20 feeds. One of them is the Simple Dollar feed, a very successful site. That site usually puts out multiple posts per day. So over the course of a year would send thousands of posts to this person’s reader. I asked how many of the posts from The Simple Dollar he had read over the past year, and he said maybe 10.

The bottom line is that there is an overload of information. A good bit of it is interesting and of quality, but who has the time to read even 1% of it? A person with their own blog is an even more unlikely source of visits because they are so busy with their own sites.

There are so many “make money blogs” that to a new blogger, it seems like a slam dunk. This is unfortunate. I say this to new bloggers as often as I get the chance. “Only start a blog if you believe you will still be posting regularly a year from now and will be doing so even if you have not made one dollar from your site because that will most likely be the case.” Blog because you enjoy it or have something you feel is important to say. Don’t blog because you think you will support your family, or even buy your daily coffee with the income.

Sites like BlogCatalog, Qassia, Stumble, MySpace, and all the other social spaces take a bunch of time that most people do not have. I often am surprised that they are as successful as they are. I know I read the titles of discussions at BlogCatalog all the time and see many that I know I would like to read and comment on. I only have time to read a few. Some days I have to tell myself to not even open the BC site and be tempted to spend an hour there.

By the way, a campaign like yours will appeal to those interested, like me, who will sign up right away. Then the hard work begins. It is a numbers game. A small percentage will sign up, so you need a big overall visitor count to make that small percentage number the 1,000 you want. Not many people click through links like the one I had on my site to your campaign. Looking at your list, I bet maybe only six of your sign ups came from my readers.

-Will