A few weeks ago I suggested that you set your sights on getting some interviews for your blog and gaining readership that way. From some of the comments we have received one of the biggest concerns that people have with this approach is that they feel their blog isn’t big enough and that they will be turned down.

So here is the response to those concerns. The concerns are very valid, but the response is, so what? Really, what are you worried about, if you email Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Ashton Kutcher or whoever it is that you want to interview and you get no response, so what. If they say thanks but no thanks, so what?

If you don’t send that email today then I can guarantee you will not get the interview. If you try and wait until you think your blog is perfect for them, you will never send the email and again you will never get the interview.

As Henry Ford is quoted as saying:

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.

You will find lots of reasons not to think like an A list blogger and everyone of them will be true. You dont have enough readers, or subscribers or content and all of those things will always be true. If you start thinking of reasons why you should think like an A list blogger before you know it you will be one.

What is holding you back?

I have written before about services like elance as a source of new income for bloggers. Today I want to talk about using it to help build your online business. As a blogger you are creative thinker, you probably have dozens of ideas a day that could help you generate income.

One of the drawbacks to these ideas is often the lack of technical expertise and or time to acquire the new skills. I was interested to read on Darren Rowse blog - Problogger that he recently used elance to find someone to write a very basic wordprocessor program for him. He wanted something that would mimic a typewriter more than act as a wordprocessor.

He paid only $50 for the program to be written, he posted it to his website and has received 12,000 views of that post to date, he was also mentioned in the British newspaper The Observer. All this for $50.

The point is, even if you don’t have the skills to execute your idea, someone out there does, so why not make the investment, if you really believe your idea will help your business or will help you launch a new one, then why wouldn’t you invest in it?

What would you hire someone to create for you?

Problogger, Darren Rowse recently ran a course for bloggers, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. On the back of that and in light of the success and great feedback he got he has released a book based on the course. He has created it as a workbook so it contains actionable information.

If you are serious about improving your blog then this would be a great investment and for $19.99 I actually think its a bargain. The book includes:

• Writing tasks
• Promotion techniques
• Methods to deepen reader engagement
• Creating thinking exercises
• Ideas for breaking through bloggers block

And this is just a small part of what you get. I definitely recommend picking up this book if you can.

Whether they are film stars or A list bloggers, the “internet famous” are everywhere. Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes its not so good. When Ashton Kutcher announced on twitter he was going to challenge CNN to see who would be the first to reach a million followers it caused a lot of conversation about how celebs and other popular users use Twitter.

However, what I drew from this, and Darren Rowse announcement today that he is only 24 posts from reaching 5000 posts, is that people like to see goals set and goals achieved. It the sense of a shared challenge.

This is something we as bloggers who are not on the A list can adopt and adapt to our own ends. By announcing a goal and a timeline that goes along with it, you can build excitement and tension among your readers. Think about TV shows like The Biggest Loser, a program that is basically just a weight loss show. However, the audience wants to see if the contestants will achieve their goal or fail miserably.

This is of course the downside of this type of post, what if you fail? Well thats the point, you will still have a story to tell, you can share the lesson that failure taught you.

What goal could you set yourself and share with your readers?

Darren Rowse - aka Problogger is running his wonderful 31 Days to a Build a Better Blog. He first ran this is 2005, then again in 2007. Here we are in 2009 and he is running it again. This time though he has extended the program.

The program is free to join, you simply sign up and get sent an email with the lesson and the project for completion each day. It starts on April 1st (he assures us that this isnt an April Fool’s day joke).

If you are serious about your blog this is a great opportunity to do all those things that you keep telling yourself you are going to do for your blog but never get around to.  You commit yourself to the 31 Days, you can unsubscribe at anytime if it just gets too much for you.

The concept is very straightforward, each day you receive a teaching component and a task to complete. In previous years there was no signup required, this time around the sign up isn’t compulsory but its there as an incentive to make you accountable to yourself, plus Darren is promising those that sign up will get extra info and help.

So what are you waiting for ? Go and sign up.