BlogCon

Boy, this last weekend was a busy one for conservatives.

Away from New York, lots of conservatives got together for political conventions and tea parties. Nice Deb has a roundup of event on Freedom Works BlogCon event. R.S. McCain was there, and he's got photos to prove it: "BlogCon: Paparazzi!" And John Hawkins gave a whopper of a speech, "My BlogCon Speech: What It Takes To Make It As a Blogger."

Now, since I am here in front of a whole roomful of bloggers, I thought I would talk about some of the things I get asked privately -- questions like, do you have advice for me about building up my traffic? What's it's like being a professional blogger? And are Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin as hot in person as they are on TV? The answer to that last question is "yes" and "yes," my friends.

Now, way back when I got started -- and this should encourage you -- I had no contacts in D.C., no contacts in the blogging world, and no special skills that gave me an edge. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a professor. I'm not a reporter. I did technical support for a living. In other words, when your grandma's dog peed on her hard drive, then she put it in the dishwasher to get it clean, took it out and wondered why it didn't work, I was the person she called -- and, yes, that did really happen.

Back then, I would get up, go to work, come home, work until the wee hours of the morning pumping out 4 solid blog posts a day; then I'd get 4-6 hours of sleep and do it again. After doing that for a year, I had 1000 people a day reading me. After two years of that, I was at 3000 a day. After four years, I had 8000 people a day reading me and went full time.

Now, I'm at around 14k people a day on Right Wing News, 14k on Linkiest, and another 5k or so on Viral Footage. On RWN, there are roughly 14-18 posts a day, M-F, another 8-10 per day on the week-ends, and I have something like 30 bloggers writing for me at least semi-regularly.

One of those 30 bloggers would be me!

Anyway, lots more awesome comments and reflections at the link. Plus, All American Blogger's got even more pictures! The schedule of events and speakers is at Freedom Works. Looks like an awesome gig!