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Took a Week Off and Missed Blogging Here

Last week, I pretty much took a week off from blogging, and most computer stuff. I stayed away from the Internet as much as possible, and just tried to recharge my internal battery. When I did come online, it was just for simple things, and to entertain myself.

I spent some time researching the upcoming Star Trek Online massively multiplayer online game which is probably years away from being launched. I worked a bit on some fiction writing that I’ve left dormant for months now. It was all very nice, but I did realize something: I find blogging here relaxing.

While I didn’t really miss podcasting, dealing with e-mail, spam, plugins, WordPress and whatnot, I did miss writing on here and talking about my experiences with blogging and my career making money through online jobs.

I am still glad I took a week off, but I am even happier to find that unlike most of my hobbies turned “for profit activities”, I still enjoy writing on here.

I have a feeling that a large part of that is thanks to the great audience I have.

Also, for those of you new to this site, make sure you check out my little contest for readers of this blog.

Originally posted on August 4, 2008 @ 5:19 pm

XFEP Reader Interaction Contest

14 Replies

Contest Time!

I have decided to run a small contest to giveaway a few things as a reward to the great readers of this site that constantly participate and make blogging here such a great experience. I haven’t run many contests before, but I have always enjoyed giving things away, and so I figured it was time to try my hand at it once again.

Prize Pool

Three Copies of Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett – An amazing book for any skill level and worth far more than the twenty-five dollar list price on the back of the book. Problogger is already in its second printing and includes some very timeless advice. I have read the book cover to cover more than a few times now. Prize includes shipping fees from me to the winner anywhere in the world.

Various Domains registered at Godaddy.com – Each domain has a different expiry date, but if you have been looking for a great property to build that next project on, no doubt one of the below will probably inspire you. As winners of domains are selected, they will get first choice on which domain, or domains where listed as a possible package, that they would like.

BuyWPThemes.com
CelebReader.com
DesignRanked.com (and DesignRankd.com if winner wants it)
FabCeleb.com
HealthNewsFirst.com
OneBigCanada.com (.biz, .info and .net if winner wants them)
TheBlogJob.com
UpRanked.com (and UpRankd.com if the winner wants it)

One Hour Blog Consulting from Me – with a list value of fifty dollars, I believe that an hour of my time, one on one in any medium you desire, could be a huge opportunity for your blog to grow in exciting new ways. Looking to monetize, but you are confused on how to make more than a coffee worth of money per day? Wanting to leverage your content better? Trying to figure out how to promote things better in the social media world? Issues with your WordPress theme? I will use my expertise, and connections to help you with your blog.

One 468×60 Banner on the front page of Xfep.com for 3 months – with a value of $360, adding your non-animated banner just above the title of each and every single post on Xfep.com as well as above the first post title on the front page will allow your brand to be noticed resulting in new traffic to your blog.

One 125×125 Banner on Xfep.com for 3 months – with a value of $120, you will be able to add your square advertisement graphic above all others on Xfep.com for three months. The exposure could mean new readers, new subscribers, and the chance to promote your own products, services, contests, or just your brand. Building brand equity is invaluable.

How to Enter

I wanted to make it easy to enter, but I also wanted those willing to go the extra mile able to have more chances at the above prizes, and so like many successful contests, I have built in a system where the more things you do, the more entries you get.

One Ticket Each

Relevant and Approved Comment on Xfep.com
Follow me on Twitter – davidcubed
Invite me to a beta for a service I am not yet a member of. [dave.phoenix at gmail.com]
Brightkite is off the list
Aviary is off the list
Twitter about this contest (don’t forget to let me know)

Two Tickets Each

Promote Posts from Xfep.com on popular Social Media promotion sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious or Sphinn. Make sure to contact me through the contact form with the relevant details of what you did, or it won’t be counted.
Post about this contest on your blog (250 words or above to qualify)

Five Tickets Each

Submit guest post for Xfep.com that gets approved (over 500 words).
Talk about Xfep, or one of its posts on your own blog (excluding the contest post). Add to the conversation.
Purchase an advertisement on Xfep.com

Winner Selection

Eligible participants will be randomly given a number or numbers dependent on how many ways they enter. Once numbers have been put into a spreadsheet and double checked for accuracy, I will run a random number generator online with a randomized hash as the seed for the random number generator. I will start with the domains, and then the advertisement positions, consulting, and finally the three copies of the books. Winners will be removed from the spreadsheet so that they cannot win multiple prizes.

Important Dates

Contest Open: Friday, July 18th, 2008
Contest Closed: Friday, August 15th, 2008 @ 11:59 PM EDT (GMT-4) [2359 hours]
Draw: Monday, August 18th, 2008
All Prizes Awarded by: September 1st, 2008

Originally posted on July 17, 2008 @ 10:23 pm

Updates to Xfep

1 Reply

I have worked on updating a few things over the past few days so that eXtra For Every Publisher could put its best foot forward for its 500th post.

The first thing that I hope you will all notice is that I have added a proper theme demo system to the ThemeTest install, making sure that you can now see any of the three themes I have released on this blog in an easy and intuitive manner. Don’t expect miracles from it, but it works well and I hope you will all give my WordPress themes another look.

Advertising rates have been updated to better reflect the rankings and size of the site. I have also signed up to use the Performancing Ads system which I will talk more about in the future. I highly recommend it, and I hope to control all of my advertising inventory through it as soon as possible.

Over on my blog consulting page, you can expect to find lowered rates which should make my consulting time more appealing to the early blogger. It is now only $50 for an hour of consulting.

Even the contact page has been changed as new contact information has been added to make it even easier to contact me when you really need to get a hold of me, but my contact form does e-mail the e-mail account I use most often, so I suggest trying that first.

These are just a few of the changes I have made on this blog over the past week, and I hope to continue to add, edit and streamline this blog so that it works as efficiently as possible for all of you looking to get into blogging.

Originally posted on June 30, 2008 @ 9:25 pm

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