Do you have to be John Grisham to succeed at Blogging?

There are many articles on the net about successful blogging and there is a never ending stream of new recruits entering the blogsophere.

These new adopters eagerly search the how to pages of other bloggers in an effort to become a successful blogger.

The blogging craze and the competitive arena that it has become have bloggers scratching their heads in an effort to make their new venture a success.

For some, success as is defined as the tangible legacy of their cathartic journey.

This group seeks nothing more than to record their life and thoughts. They have no financial or political agenda other than their desire for self fulfillment.

As the internet evolves and socially engineered software becomes more streamlined, diarists have also evolved and for some, blogging has become their ticket to a new vocation and financial independence.
Blogs that have a high amount of visitors are able to monetize their web pages to an extent where the authors are able to generate enough income to derive a part time or full time living from their input.
For those desiring more than to see their diary online, the challenge exists to create content that satisfies their own literary standards but at the same time achieves populous standing.

The race to stand out from the blogging crowd has seen a multitude of online tutorials, e-books, educational courses, marketing plans and get rich easy programs bombard the web.

We no longer take much interest unless the author has something unique to offer us.

I have two friends who have their own web sites and self publish for a living.
One has an article archive of 17,000 posts and the other has an archive of 14000 posts.
One has been blogging for seven years and it took him five years before he was able to derive full time income.
The other was well established in his field before he became a self publisher.
He had a list of high profile contacts that provided exclusive information and this enabled him to establish his web site as a respected source of news in his field.

Their sites and interests are quite different but they both agree on one point.

There is no easy way to be successful. Content is king. If you desire success then you have to compile a body of works that has is both popular and voluminous. Be a John Grisham of your genre. Write all the time and learn to write what people want o read.
Quality, quantity and marketability are the key factors that never change.
I recently printed out all my articles and stuck the pages on the bookshelf behind my desk.
The small file looked so inconsequential next to the volumes of my favorite authors.
Like the rest of you, I have my work cut out for me too.