Become a Top Blogger Uncategorized By Mary Jaksch Who are the finalists? Four weeks ago we asked you to nominate your favorite blog for writers. We got 518 nominations! Thanks to everyone who put in a nomination. Here are the finalists in alphabetical order: Authors on Show Beyond the Margins Cats Eye Writer Courage 2 Create Creative Copy Challenge Fuel Your Writing Ladyscribes Make a Living Writing Men With Pens Nail Your Novel Ruby Slippered Sisterhood Storyfix The Creative Penn The Renegade Writer The Urban Muse Tribal Writer Victoria Mixon Wordplay Write in Color Writer Unboxed How will the winners be selected? Initial qualification: A site must have been nominated more than once by multiple individuals, and be a blog satisfying the contest’s criteria. If someone nominated more than one blog, only the first nomination was counted. Final winner selection: Quality of posts- A qualitative analysis of the content of posts will be examined. Educational, useful, engaging, and discussion-creating posts are more valuable than self-promotional posts. (55% of decision) Blog-based analysis– Factors to be taken into account will include: Frequency of posts: Blogs that publish regular posts on a weekly basis will score higher; Reader involvement: Blogs that have regular comments from readers on its posts is another sign of a healthy blog. In addition, the number of nominations for a specific blog plays a part in this. (45% of decision) The panel of judges: Leo Babauta is the creator of Zen Habits and mnmlist, the author of Focus and co-creator of Write to Done. Brian Clark is the creator of CopyBlogger, as well as co-founder of Teaching Sells and Third Tribe. Michael Stelzner is the author of “Writing White Papers” and Founder of Social Media Examiner Deb Ng is the founder and former owner of the Freelance Writing Jobs. She now blogs about blogging and social media at Kommein and works as Conference Director for the BlogWorld and New Media Expo. We will announce the winners of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers before Christmas. Mary Jaksch – Editor-in-Chief, WTD Note: I’m sure you can imagine what a big task it is to work out the finalists and winners of this contest. I would like to acknowledge Scott McIntyre of Vivid Ways for his generous help with this contest. Update: Click here to find the winners