ProBlogger Group Writing Project – ‘How To…’

It’s time for another ProBlogger Group Writing Project – and this time we’ve got prizes worth around $1800 USD (see below for details)!

Update: PLEASE READ ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE SUBMITTING. Particularly pay attention to the instruction to submit NEW posts not previously written ones. Old posts (written before today) won’t be accepted and will not be eligable for a gift. Thanks for your understanding.

See the full list of submissions in this project as they’re added here.

The Topic

This week’s topic is ‘HOW TO….’.

Your task is to write a new ‘how to…. post’ (please don’t submit old posts you’ve written before today).

By ‘How To….’ I mean some sort of a post that gives advice, tips or a tutorial on how to do something. What it’s about is totally up to you. I’ve chosen this topic because it’s adaptable to most topics and should be something you could do on almost any blog. It need not be titled as a ‘how to…’ post but in content it should be this type of post. I’m looking forward to seeing the wide array of topics that you all choose to cover.

Once you’ve written your how to post simply follow the process for participating that I’ve outlined below (please note – to be eligible for the gifts from our sponsors you need to follow the guidelines below).

The Prizes

This week’s group writing project is proudly sponsored by the following companies and individuals. Five random participants (ie – this is not a competition) in this week’s project will receive one of the following gifts (listed here in no particular order – all values are in USD unless otherwise mentioned):

• One week complimentary stay (for up to 4 people) at a beach front apartment in Estepona on the Costa del Sol Spain (pictured above). This prize must be taken in the next 12 months and the winner must cover all their own costs in getting to Spain (ie this is for the cost of the accommodation only). If the prize cannot be taken by the winner they can also take an iPod (video) instead (by negotiation with the sponsor). This prize (valued at 1000 euros if taken in the peak season) has been kindly donated by New Homes on Nubricks.com. Thanks to Adam and Chintan.
• $100 Cash (in your paypal account) OR a month long text link in the Webmaster-Talk.com forums. This prize sponsored by Webmaster-Talk.com forums – thanks to Tim and his team.
• A Personal license for ExpressionEngine including a personal license for the forums module (worth $149). This prize is sponsored by Marcus from Nanoblogs.de
• A $149 yearly plan to Audible.com OR a $100 gift voucher to iTunes (your choice). This gift has been donated by Google Tutor. Thanks to Craig for this gift.
• $200 gift voucher from Amazon to spend on anything you like. Its been kindly donated by OwnMySeat.com. Thanks to Jason for his kind donation.

Thanks also to those others who offered to sponsor this week. As I mentioned – there were 30 offers of prizes which was quite overwhelming. I’ll continue to run these projects in future and hopefully we can feature more of the offers next time.

How To Participate

Here’s how to participate and put yourself in the running for a gift (please note – one entry per person – not per blog and please only submit NEW posts).

1. Write a ‘how to’ post

• Be as creative as you’d like – take it in any direction you want – it can be on any topic (keep it clean and ‘family friendly please), it can be any length, it can be serious, funny, it can be a list post, a rant, an essay, a pictorial or video post… etc
• Give your post a good title. Once all the posts are listed it’ll only be your title that sets it apart from others. It doesn’t have to have the words ‘how to’ in the title – but if can if you wish.
• Feel free to write your post in your own first language – I’ve previously included a number of non-english posts and am excited by the prospect of making this a multi-lingual project.
• Please consider putting a link back to this post on your post so that your readers know you’re participating. You don’t have to do this – but it’d be appreaciated to help grow the project.

2. Let us Know about your post

• Once you’ve posted your How To post let me know about it by sending me an email via my contact form.
• Make sure you include your name (as you want it to appear in my list), your post title and the URL to your post (not just to your blog’s front page).
• Submissions must be received by me the the end of Thursday 21 September (as long as it’s still Thursday where you send it from I’ll accept it). If they come in after Thursday they won’t be included in the list and will not be in the running for the gifts.

3. I will post 2 links to your post

• In the day or two after you let me know about your post I’ll post a link to it in two places. Firstly there will be a daily (ish) list of the submissions from the last 24 hours. Secondly there will be a central list of all submissions for the project so we can see everything on one page.
• I’ll post my final list of submissions on Friday and will announce those who receive the gifts then.

4. Surf Surf Surf

• This is where you take over. Surf the submissions received. Leave comments, make connections with other ProBlogger readers and enjoy reading what others have to say.

5. Link Link Link

• There is no formal ‘judging’ as this is not a competition. Instead – I encourage you to surf through the submissions at the end of the week and announce your own winners on your own blog. Name a top 5 or so and share the link love.
• Probably the best part of the last group project was the amount of inter-linking I see happening between participating bloggers as a result of their posts. It’s obvious that people found new blogs through it and that the benefits of participating was way beyond getting a link from me but flowed on to a lot of new connections and links between other bloggers.

6. Gifts

• On Friday I’ll randomly select 5 participants to win the 5 gifts and will post the winners at this point. The rest of us can muse over what could have been and then we’ll get ourselves ready for next months project.