A new blog every month? Are you nuts?
By AndrewBoyd • Nov 22nd, 2007 • Category: Blogging tipsI am that kind of nuts, yes.
Maki from DoshDosh is running a new kind of group writing project - he is asking people to join him in creating a new flagship blog every month. Here is the overview:
Create one flagship blog on the first day of every month and spend all 30 days developing and optimizing it. By the end of the month, the blog should be fully operational and only maintenance is needed: which means that you’ll only need to create content regularly while promoting the site.
When the first day of the next month arrives, repeat the whole process again by building and creating another new blog within the time frame of 30 days.
At the end of a year, you should have 12 flagship blogs and all of them should be fairly established with their core audience and regular readers. Depending on the niche and the blog’s popularity, each will bring in some steady revenue.
Put simply, this project involves the repeated use of 30 day blog production cycles to develop multiple flagship sites. The ultimate goal is to eventually set up a collection of blogs and make them into profitable assets.
I’m in.
I am tempted to cheat some months and use the time to rehabilitate one of my existing underutilised blogs - and there are a few, like Social Cult, Active Domaining, A Book Thing, BlogDotGov, Work/Blog/Life, BlogFuze, Faux Cuisine, The Canberra Blog, Canberra Blog Community, PortaBlogger, The Blog Collector, and WiiForMii. Hmm, that’s 12 - I’m not sure that it is fair to enter a “new blog every month” project and not start a single new blog. Maybe I’ll limit rehabilitation of existing blogs to every second month - or sell a couple of the above to pay for my hosting for the year (and start with more new blogs from scratch - I love starting new blogs, it’s a hobby). I’ve got a heap of domain names in parking orbit at the moment waiting for inspiration to become new blogs. The good thing is that I can blog about the project on Facibus On Blogging and The Blog Collector.
It’s not as impossible as it might sound - Maki has laid out a fairly repeatable process that your average blogger will be able to follow. The great thing is that the skills required to get a new self-hosted blog up and running are the subject of a new series starting today over at Facibus On Blogging called Get a real blog.
If the idea of a new blog every month doesn’t scare the pants off of you (or even if it does) please read about the Flagship Blog Project. It is going to be a fascinating study in what is doable.
AndrewBoyd is a consultant by day and blogger by night. He loves good food, good wine, and discussing faceted classification schemes with friends.
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I read about Maki and thought “Good Lord”. I’m trying to get just one other blog up and running, but am seriously lacking the motivation… Just quietly, I think you ARE nuts! But I wish you all the best anyway
Hi Meg,
thank you for your comment.
Yep, I am nuts, truly. Maki’s challenge is extreme blogging - for me, there is no other way to do it
Best regards, Andrew
I also read Maki’s challenge and as I started to read it I thought “great idea”, then I went for coffee and thought about it. Quickly realising that I don’t have time to upload stuff to my own blog, let alone launch another one!!!
Hi Keiron,
time is an issue, true. You’ve really got to want to do this sort of thing to start it - and have the passion and drive to spare to see it through.
When I think about it, the prospect does scare me a little
Best regards, Andrew
I think it’s probably down to the blog I already run (which I only update when I have time), the hosting business I already run and the day job!!! Arrghh, one of them’s going to have to give sometime!
Hi Keiron,
that would explain it
I’m a consultant (well, today anyhow, we’ll see what tomorrow brings) and between work and afterwork I usually put in 10-12 hours a day. Blogging is an optional extra for me - I try to set up series of posts so I can write what I need to in large chunks when I can free up the time. I’d be the first to admit that it isn’t easy 
Bless him, Dane says that facibus.com/onblogging is worth more than $62,000.00 and onblogging.com.au is worth $30,485.00. Just between you and me, I’d sell the pair of them for a tenth of that combined figure just so that I could have the rush of starting from scratch 
PS: just read your blog - Dane’s “How much is it worth?” script is a beauty - I used to love putting URLs into it
Cheers, Andrew
w00t - I haven’t done that for months $126k, not bad for a blog with no revenue model
Hehe, I do try to make time for a couple of other things in life as well, maybe that’s my downfall
My personal blog is more of a memory jotter than anything, two other blogs I have are listed as worth $0.00 in that tool, yet they’ve made a couple of hundred dollars in Adsense, so it’s all a pinch of salt I guess. I wouldn’t sell the personal one and I’m not so sure about the other two either!
Hi Meg,
good on you - you’ve worked hard to bring Dipping into the Blogpond up to that level
Cheers, Andrew
Hi Keiron,
life, peh, I had one of those once
That is good going, making money from Adsense - I never really had the knack, might experiment with it again soon. I would certainly have got my minimum CPM count on Facibus On Blogging yesterday - 1600 hits on one post alone (thanks to a kind Stumbler).
I’ve got a dozen blogs that I would sell tomorrow because I have a hundred more blog ideas lined up waiting to find the time to start them - that is why Maki’s project gets me going. It’s an excuse to start more blogs
Best regards, Andrew
Ah no, it’s really just a bit of fun. I’m assuming it goes off Technorati which is so sickeningly easy to “game” (not that I do). Get on a few blogrolls, hunt and find dofollow blogs etc.
A measure of one’s success really comes down to “influence” at the end of the day, and subscriber count has to be a big factor in that. Not that I’m b1tching mind you, I really don’t think I’d want the thought of publishing for thousands of people - I like the community feel.
I meant to add, I don’t think I’d sell for a 10th. 160,000 words of my “blood, sweat and tears” (well, minus the Idol recaps
). Damn, perhaps I should have written a novel, if only I had the creativity of JK Rowling….
Hi Meg,
I’m different - I would love to publish for thousands, because then Adsense would be worthwhile
I’ve written a few books in the past, it isn’t that much harder than writing a blog series (OK, imagine a really long blog series). Getting it past the editor and publisher are the hard bits for me 
The thing is, you have written a novel - just the characters keep changing
Best regards, Andrew
I’ve got 50 odd domains I still have to “find time for”, if I launched a blog on each of them I think the only thing that might give would be my sanity! Actually quite a few of them aren’t suited to blogs!
LOL - now there’s a point (Adsense)! Have you considered “Dummies guide to Blogging”? Or has it been done?
Hi Keiron,
the finding of the time, that is the scary bit.
I own a few domains myself, and some of them are not suitable to a wider audience at all
Funny story, one night I found myself bored and punching odd swearwords into the Overture Inventory tool, and grabbing the domains that best fit the most popular matches. Sad indictment on modern society that those are the only domain names I own that actually pay for themselves in parking servers 
Best regards, Andrew
Had a few drinks had we?
Hi Meg,
I’m planning on giving an ebook away based on the “get a real blog” series from Facibus On Blogging. I’d be surprised if it runs to more than 50 pages but it should be fun, and hopefully will help to raise my profile a bit. I used to be a technical writer and have written literally hundreds of manuals and user guides over the years - I’m really looking forward to writing one for bloggers.
The Dummies Guide people are fairly strict about what they publish (I’ve pitched a few ideas at them through the years).
Best regards, Andrew
Hi Meg,
the night I bought the naughty word domains? Perhaps
Not tonight though, still ill with this cold/flu/thing.
Best regards, Andrew
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