5 bloggers have joined forces to create a one month rss feed competition that is set to attract a lot of attention as they all provide a heap of different contests and incentives to attract the most rss subscribers in the race to be titled the winner!

Everyone remembers the John Chow vs Shoemoney rss feed contest back last October! Well this one is set to be much bigger after fellow blogger Ian Fernando and I we able to convince The University Kid, Internet Babel and SlyVisions to join us in creating what is set to become one of the biggest contests between bloggers this year!

Starting today, this competition is set to be a big learning experience on many different ways to rapidly build your rss feed count. So for the next month make sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss a single thing!

So How Does It Work?

Start Date: Today!

End Date: 5th of March

Rules: The winner is the blogger that has had the biggest increase in rss feed subscribers by the end of the competition. Simple as that!

What Will I Be Giving You So That I Win?

I am a big believer in rewarding people for doing things, and I will be implimenting that A LOT during this contest. I have already got a few incentives and contests lined up that I will launch over the coming month. There will prizes as well as money up for grabs as I make my best attempt at this competition.

Win One of 4 125X125 Ad Spots (Two Days Left!!!)

have already been running a competition for the last 5 days where you can win one of 4 of my side ad spots for just subscribing to this blog via email. Valued at $10 each, this is a great way to gain exposure for your blog or website! So subscribe today… and grab yourself my next bonus gift to all email subscribers!

Free Write Up In Blog Posts For Every New Email Subscriber!

As I get new subscribers each day I want to be able to reward you all! So what I have decided to do is each day as I get new subscribers I want to be able to write a small review of each of them on the next days blog post. All you have to do is subscribe via email:

Click Here To Subscribe Via Email!

And then comment either this post of the latest posts using the same email address that you subscribed with, and I will make sure to do a small review of your blog or website on the next days post!

Other Things I will Be Doing To Enhance My Chances!

BIG RSS Button and Banner!

I am sure you have already noticed the new banner I have added underneath my header. I will do my best to keep this updated with all the latest rss feed counts.

I’ll Save The Rest For Later…

Don’t think I won’t be posting usful content this month! As well as posting an indepth analysis of what I have been doing to increase my rss feed count (more than my competitors!), I will also be doing a good amount of my usual blogging and motivational posts. So make sure you are subscribed today… get in early and see some a heap of ways (some good and some bad) to increase your RSS count!

Got Any Ideas???

Sure I have some ideas of my own, but I’d love to know what you would do if you were in my situation! What would you do to gain a heap of new subscribers in a short period of time? Feel free to add you thoughts in a comment!

What Do You Do When You Want To Give Up?

We all have those moments. You know the ones I’m talking about! The moments when you just want to quit blogging.

Whether it is because of:

• What someone said about your blog
• Lack of traffic
• Your Inability to gain comments
• Your competition that only got one entry

I guess the reason doesn’t really matter. The big question is, how do you get to the other end of the tunnel and back into the light again?

Hard times and challenges always come. The only thing that changes is the way that we respond to those challenges!

Will you step up to the challenge or let it step over you?

Here are 3 Things To Do Before Throwing In The Towel!

So what do you do? When you are having one of those days (weeks or months!!!) and are just ready to quit blogging?

1. Restoke The Passion

Can you remember when you first started blogging? Remember how much fun you had putting each new blog post together? The joy of checking each day to see if anyone had left a comment?

Where did that go?

My bet is that it got lost when you started reading that:

• Readers want consistent posting
• You need to be posting everyday
• etc etc

 And you ended up blogging just so that you had a new post everyday. Not because you had something to write about. Maybe you started to burn out?

Why not consider taking your foot off the gas and slow your blogging own for a bit?

2. Realise You Are Not Alone

I would think that every blogger - yes even John Chow, Shoemoney and Darren Rowse have felt like giving up at one stage.

I could give example after example of bloggers that have just stopped posting for a week or a month just beause the passion dissapears and it becomes to much like hard work.

Talk to your peers!

So if you are feeling like giving up, why not write a post about what’s going through your mind and ask for your readers to give you some advice? And let their comments encourage you to keep blogging!

3. Start Writing What You Love

Or should I say REstart writing what you love!

This is how the blogging cycle usually works:

1. You start a blog because you love a topic
2. You start writing what you think others want to read because you want to gain readers
3. Your passion and personality go from your posts
4. You don’t get any new readers
5. Then you feel like giving up

How do I know this?

Because it is something I have just gone through with this blog. I started the blog with so much passion for blogging and writing about inspiring and motivating other bloggers but I got too caught up in trying to write a post a day and writing posts that I thought my readers wanted to read, when all along I should have been posting about what I love and what I’m thinking about at the time - because that is what I am passionate about.

I have come to realise that the reason people visit your blog over another is because of the voice of the blog, because of YOUR writing style, YOUR knowledge, YOUR passion and/or YOUR humour - they want you, so why give them something else?

So start blogging about what you love and you will soon find yourself loving blogging again!

I have been in my church’s youth band for years now playing keyboard and I really enjoy it, but tonight was our first night back for the year and I did something that I thought I would never do - sing on stage. It’s kind of weird. I king of got pushed into it, and it all started about the middle of last year.

It was about July last year and I had written my first song, and I must say I was really proud of it - I mean it was a pretty dodgy recording cause I did it at home, but it was the first song I had ever written. So what I did was burn a copy of it and gave it to the then band leader and friend of mine to listen too. A week goes by and I didn’t hear anything from him - so I figured it wasn’t that good. Then he comes to me a bit later and says, ‘Tom I didn’t know you had a good voice!’ To which I replied, ‘I don’t’ and then he said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, you can’t sing, but you could if you learn’t how.’

I didn’t know whether to take that as a pay out or a compliment - so I did the later! And started attending the singing workshops that our church put on. Started doing a bit of singing while playing keyboard in the kids band at church, and thought that was pretty much it.

Then Michael (our youth pastor) called me into his office a couple of weeks ago and told me that the old band leader as moving on to a new roll and all though there would be a new band leader, he also wanted like a core team for the band - which he wanted me on. I was a little bit surprised, cause I’m just a keyboard player. But then he told me that we only really had 2 male singers (and about 7 female singers) and he saw singing and eventually leading the band on some nights.

Me being me thought he was talking about in the future, and then the this months music roster comes out and I look down the keyboard column - my name is there only once! Thinking I was getting cut I checked the other columns and realised I had been put in the singing column 3 times.

And that brings me to tonight. I must say it was really different and freaked me out a little bit, but in the end I just had fun, jumped around and sang. It was so great after woods to have people come up to me and encourage me saying that I did good, and that it looked like I’d been doing it for ages. But the big thing for me is that I got pushed into an area where I was uncomfortable and I realised that you never know what things are like until you just step out and do them.

I guess this whole story was just to encourage you to step and and do things that you thought you never would. Do things that make you uncomfortable. Because it is these things that will stretch you and help you grow as a person, a business person or blogger.

So what is your story? Have you ever done something that you thought you never would? How did it go? Let me know by commenting below!