Bloggers love comments. I’m no different. They’re like a badge of success. It you get elevently-trillion comments on a post, you are awesome. If you get none, you are a loser who should commit suicide immediately and do the world a favor.

Or something along those lines.

Well, despite my best efforts, I’m still alive, so I must be getting enough comments, right? No, not really. Look through these pages and you’ll see that I maybe garner 1-3 comments in a post.

Most of my comments come in the form of tweets. On twitter, my link goes out, and me readers and I spend a few minutes discussing the post. It’s very interactive, and since I have Tweetdeck open all day, I don’t have to log in and out to check them.

Comments within the posts, on the other hand, pop up in my email at the most inopportune times, like when I’m about to hop on the subway or I’ve just shut the computer down for the night. So it will take me a while to approve it, and even longer to respond, if it’s something I can respond to at all.

Dee Barizo over at Performancing put up a post yesterday about how to get more comments. Her post includes a few tips to drive the right kind of traffic and spark the right kind of conversation in order to receive the most comments.

For me, I’m not fussed either way. I’m getting my needy personality catered to over on Twitter. But what about you? Do you thrive on comments?

You can either leave a comment here, or if you prefer, I’ll be over on Twitter.

CAUTION: I’m very no-holds-barred, no-filter on Twitter. Not for the faint of heart.

Or at least it felt that way. Though I can’t say I wasn’t warned. And it was certainly better than the legal document I once read that went on for seven pages before the first period.

Glen, the 12-year-old who runs ViperChill, wrote an excellent post about… well, lots of stuff, actually. Pretty insightful for a kid whose voice hasn’t cracked yet. (ok, he’s not 12 – but he ain’t much older!)

Basically, what it all comes down to is “Do you have the balls to be remarkable?”

Yahoo! played it safe with their portal, and then Google came along with their simple search interface. MySpace played it safe and stopped innovating, and then Facebook stole the social network crown. Newspapers played it safe and now most of them are struggling to find leverage online.

Playing it safe is easy. But it’s also boring and predictable. Taking risks might (probably not) alienate your potential audience, but that’s fine. You will build an audience who loves whatever it is you’re doing differently.

Either pour yourself a glass of wine and settle in to read the whole post, or get to work 15 minutes early tomorrow to read it over coffee. Whatever you choose, go read it.

Thanks to Rizzn at SiliconAngle for sharing.

I was cruising the job boards today, and came across this blogging job for Geek Girl on the Street.

Geek Girl on the Street (http://geekgirlonthestreet.com) is a new web publication focusing on geeky adventure and storytelling. Launched in January 2010, we are thriving and growing, attracting +1,000 weekly visitors (we anticipate hitting our goal of 50,000 monthly visitors by December 2010). We are in search of writers who are interested in submitting geeky rants/opinions, vlog posts, interviews, product/event reviews, fan-fiction, original artwork and photography for publication. We also secure interviews/press passes to some of the country’s geekiest events for our writers – including SD Comic Con, C2E2, MacWorld, GDC, BlogHer, Maker Faire, APE and others… GGotS is a great indie publication to showcase your writing on!

Sounds pretty hip, and like it would have an easy, laid-back tone. Just my kind of thing.

But… Then it came to the compensation.

Here’s the OMG: We PAY FOR SUBMISSIONS.

(Granted it’s not a ton o’ $$ – but, in this economy something is better than nothing!)

Um, actually, no. What this ad says to me is that GGotS is going to vastly underpay any writer that is hired, and make that writer feel lucky for getting anything at all.

Now, in their defense, they haven’t actually mentioned a price, so it might be in line with other blogging gigs ($25-50 per post, depending on how much research and social media pimping is required). But it sounds more like the kind of place you should be grateful you’re hired at. Almost like an internship with a prestigious magazine.

If you are new to the blogging-as-business scene, perhaps this gig might suit you, if only to pad your collection of clips. But for me, and for other professional bloggers, it looks like too much effort for too little pay.

Hey Canadians, wanna be the Blogging Idol? Think of it: Fame, fortune, a blogging contract, Simon Cowel making a fortune of the sweat of your brow…

Or, you know, a thousand bucks and some increased traffic.

IT World Canada is hosting a contest called Blogging Idol, which is open to all Canadian bloggers. Check out the info:

Starting in mid-May, we’ll be asking would-be bloggers to write posts on our site, blogs.itworldcanada.com, on a weekly topic determined by our editors. We’ll have special guests critique the posts in the comments area, and readers will choose their favourites using the ratings function.
IT World Canada is the information resource of choice for Canadian IT professionals. For more than 25 years, the Toronto-based company has been building relationships with Canada’s IT professionals through leading publications including: CIO Canada, Network World Canada, ComputerWorld Canada, CIO Government Review, DI Informatique and CDN, as well as the Web sites www.itworldcanada.com and  itbusiness.ca

Clearly this is most suited to tech bloggers, but theoretically anyone with the ability to write about IT can enter. Top prize is $1,000, and all runners-up get gift certificates.

Good luck!

No, not me. I don’t know the first bloody thing about making pretty-pretty on my blog. I can post each day, change the occasional link in the sidebar, but that cosmetic stuff is soooo not for me.

Whenever I need a major change, or an update, or a plugin I don’t understand (and let’s face it, nothing in Wordpress makes any sense, ever, it’s all written in code for coders), I call Tammy from Tammy’s Designs. Tammy is the one who put this website together for me, loosely based on a theme by Attilus. Tammy also designed my political blog.

Anyway, she’s having a sale this week. Call it a “My son is going to college, ZOMG! Bills!” sale. She normally charges $225 for blog design and setup, as well as ongoing tech support for those annoying plugins and such. But this week only, she’s dropping her price to $180.

You can contact Tammy for further information and samples of her work by emailing

amomandherblog AT gmail DOT com

Although she normally offers hosting, she is “full” at this time. Which is bad timing for me, because I was hoping to switch this spring. C’est la vie, I suppose. Anyway, check her out for design and support. She’ll work with you to give your blog the look and feel that suits you best.

Break Studios, purveyors of such fine websites as Chickipedia, Break.com and Holy Taco, is hiring content writers.

Their articles are upbeat, informative, hip and young in style. Very heavy into the how-to genre. For example, one of the articles available is How to Have an Affair. Think you can hack writing that kind of article?

Break Studios sign up can be found here.

Break Studios is for legal United States residents or citizens only, so don’t bother applying if you don’t legally reside or pay taxes within the US.

Articles for Break run between 200-800 words, and pay is low/medium. More than some of the penny-per-word content mills out there, but nothing that will allow retire writing just one article per day. The average seems to be about $10. They pay monthly via PayPal.

If you are looking to improve your article writing, try The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing. Includes templates to streamline article writing, and tips to find inspiration when you truly believe there’s none to be found.

Good luck with Break Studios. Drop me a line after doing some business with them and let me know about the experience!

Remember books? I used to read them. Sometimes one each day! Now I’m lucky if I can read one book each month.

It began with fiction. Once I began blogging about news, politics and war, I stopped reading fiction. My fortunes went to pay for non-fiction tomes on subjects that gave me nightmares.

Then I gave up books altogether. Magazine articles were better suited to my blogger’s attention span.

Until even magazine articles became too long! My attention span became so short I started reading only other blog posts.

I had to retrain my brain to stop eating candy and start eating fiber again!

Fiction. Fun, cheap, sleazy fiction helped get me back into reading.  I picked up something light and fluffy, easy to rip through, and spent a weekend reading it over coffee.

Then I tacked some heavier political non-fic. It took longer. More than two weeks! I kept putting the book down to do something else, wandering off, forgetting about it. But I stuck with it and finished the damn thing.

When you blog, it’s easy to have your attention span eaten away. It’s the nature of the best. Especially with 24-hour news channels blaring their 2-minute sound bites in the background. Everything these days seems to come in easily digested single serving portions, but sometimes you need more substance.

Don’t let blogging eat your brain. Keep it in fighting form with New Yorker-length articles and good juicy books.

Ali Hale, author of the Staff Blogging Course (which I loved, because it made me money), has just launched The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing (which no doubt will also help me make money).

Ali Hale has turned blogging for clients (businesses, individuals, corporations) into a career, and her Staff Blogging Course helped me get started to do the same. I love blogging, and I wanted to make money doing what I loved.

With The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing, Ali continues the lessons learned in Staff Blogging Course and builds on them. It takes and average writer and turns him or her into a great writer. An effective writer.

An effective writer gets the message across simply and efficiently. An effective writer can write an excellent message to blog readers without spending forever hemming and hawing over every semicolon. An effective writer writes what readers want to read.

For $29, The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing will give you:

An 82-page ebook with fifteen chapters, which include the following:

• Why Good Writing Matters
• Coming Up With Ideas
• Writing At Different Stages
• Writing a Series of Posts
• Using Images
• Polishing Your Posts

PLUS: Templates for fast, effective blogging, AND, $10 off the Staff Blogging Course – did I mention I made money with it? So that means the Staff Blogging Course will only cost you $9. That’s right – nine bucks for a course that I made over $1000 with last year.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be curled up reading The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing this weekend.

Click here to view more details about The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing by Ali Hale.

A lot of my readers have a real passion for blogging. They have at least one or two sites of their own, plus many of them contribute to group sites. The question I have for them is: If you love blogging so much, why not make a career out of it?

People who find careers that suit their passions are generally the happiest. Yet many people get stuck in the drone rut, working a boring job they feel nothing for, just to meet the monthly bills.

You can blog for money!

Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course shows tells you what kind of skills and time you need to make a career out of blogging for others, plus shows you where and how to find blogging jobs.

I used this course last year and scored several gigs out of it – short and long term. And since then I have gone back and referred to certain sections of the e-book to inspire and refresh me.

If you have a real passion for blogging, check out Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course to learn how to turn your passion into profit.

Last year I did the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge, and I think I’ll do it again this year, too.

Created by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, the 31DBBB workbook can help you make your existing blog better, more widely read and monetized to boot!

Right now Darren is offering bonuses on the book, but only until January 19:

Bonus #1: Free Report: 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year

Written in the style of 31DBBB this report talks you through 9 things that I do at the beginning of every new year. Each step gives you a practical exercise to go away and DO to help get your blog going in the right direction. Effectively it turns the 31 day workbook into a 40 day one!

Bonus #2: Podcast with Leo Babauta from Zen Habits

Regular readers of ProBlogger will know the wisdom and insight of Leo from Zen Habits. He’s grow his blog Zen Habits from nothing to being one of the most read self help blogs in the blogosphere in just a couple of years. He’s released a book (The Power of Less) off the back of his blog and has also since launched a number of other successful blogs, profitable e-books and other products off the back of his blog.

There’s lots of good practical advice in this podcast – I came away from it with loads of ideas and inspiration myself and am sure many will benefit from it.

Bonus #3: Podcast with Neil Patel from QuickSprout

Neil Patel has built an amazing reputation and brand for himself in the last 3-4 years. He’s been a part of building two successful blogs but has also work with some amazing companies on their social media presence (like AOL, HP, Viacom and General Motors). He’s also been a part of helping blogs like TechCrunch rise to the power blogs that they are today.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook already provides:

• Intense Training – bloggers setting aside weekends or weeks to go through multiple tasks at once
• 1 Task a Day – the way we designed it – one day at a time
• 1 Task a Week – bloggers taking their time with the challenge and making the tasks week long tasks
• Monthly Cycle – bloggers using the tasks again and again each month as a monthly routine for their blogging.
• Occasional Inspirational Resource – bloggers dipping into 31DBBB on a more occasional basis – using it on days when they have time or lack inspiration.

Get your copy before January 19 to take advantage of the bonuses Darren is including. The 31DBBB should be done annually, to keep your blog in fighting form. Us bloggers get lazy, expecially over the holidays. Now is as good a time as any to shake things up again.