That's true. First of all, you have to be able to write engaging content that people will want to read. Second of all, book authors have publishers that know how to promote a book (in varying degrees). That too makes or breaks the success of a book. The same goes for blogs. Just having a blog without promoting it won't do you much good, no matter how good you are. Blogs stand a little bit of a better chance, because the overheads are low (or can be non-existing!) and if you blog about a niche topic you might rank well in search engines without additional SEO (but your target audience will be smaller which will impact your potential revenue). Saying that, apart for some lucky few who choose a very smart niche market, you will need some promotional skills to get the word about your blog out there. Even when heavily promoting your blog, it will take time to build a library of content that makes your blog worth following and to get a critical mass of visitors. A really well run blog will take about 18 months before it brings in reasonable revenue.

I agree. I think a lot of people don't really have a focus or vision for their blog and that can hamper their success with it.

And I also thinking with the ever number of growing blogs about different topics...competion in this area is increasing....you must really have a vision plan as to how u wish to see your blog grow or whether it has that capacity...just writing isn't enough...you have to be your blog's salesman too..

I think that the blogs that are successful always give the reader information that they can USE. In other words, your day-to-day life (even if you have a really interesting life) will not make a successful blog unless you have valuable information to impart to the reader.

yup...your daily grind will only interest if you r Angelina Jolie or Tom Cruise...
For other lesser mortals like us....we just have to find something more useful to write about...

chris1203 wrote:
I think that the blogs that are successful always give the reader information that they can USE. In other words, your day-to-day life (even if you have a really interesting life) will not make a successful blog unless you have valuable information to impart to the reader.

Yes, that is what facebook is for (day to day life events). A blog has to fulfill a need for someone, to answer a question or entertain.