Step 1: Become fabulously wealthy

Christian Crumlish

I have so many plans for the future that share that same first step. (Sometimes I feel like Homer in a Simpsons re-run I saw recently: he and Marge are stalking a judge and they are startled by an nighttime milk truck delivery. Homer says, "Hey... maybe I should become a milkman!" and Marge asks him to focus, but I'm digressing....)

Chris Gulker did an analysis of the Blogging Ecosystem and the Userland community server rankings and extracted some interesting patterns. Not suprisingly, the top marker of popular blogs is that their author is famous.

If you want more readers, you should become famous and, lacking that, write frequent, long posts about stuff that you know well.

Step 1: Become famous...

I should point out that the Web enables a form of microfame or nanofame amidst smaller-but-sometimes-more-focused communities than are found in the old media's fame-o-sphere. Ray Ozzie is a superstar blogger but ask your uncle who he is.

This reminds me of the advice I give about getting nonfiction published. In descending order of effectiveness, try to

1. Be famous or sexy or famous for being sexy
2. Write about something famous or sexy
3. Have some scandalous new bit of information about someone or something famous or sexy
4. Offer something the reader will value more than the cost of the book, such as a surefire way to become, rich, famous, sexy, or promoted.