Last weekend I asked bloggers to share the lessons that they’ve learned about blogging that they wish they knew when first starting out. The resulting comment thread is so rich with ideas, experiences and lessons that it’s too good to leave languishing in a comment thread.

As I read through the comments some definite themes were present so I thought that this week I’d repost some of the comments in groups around certain themes and in doing so share a few of my own thoughts on the topics also.

The topics that we’ll cover this way this week are:

• Blog Hosting, Domains and Blogging Platforms
• How to Make Money Blogging
• Writing Content
• Finding Readers for Your Blog
• Starting a Blog

There will be one post per day and I’ll update the above list with links to each day as I release them so that there’s a central point.

Thanks to everyone for your comments – you’re welcome to continue to answer the question – but I may not be able to include too many of the future comments into posts. Apologies also to those whose comments I’ve not used. It’s not because they are not good enough, but because there were 100+ responses and I had to be a little selective.

I’ll post the first post on Blog hosting, domains and blogging platforms shortly.

Richard MacManus reflects today upon an article that appeared in a local site which featured his story of turning blogging from a hobby into a Career.

Richard says some very worthwhile stuff about the keys to his success – particularly the amount of work and time that’s gone into building his very successful blog.

There were two key quotes for me in Richard’s post:

“Basically it takes a whole lot of hard work, knowledge and passion about the topic you’re blogging about, patience, and some ‘being in the right place at the right time’ luck.”

and

“So really, it took 3 whole years for Read/WriteWeb to go from ‘hobby’ to full-time job. The bottom line: blogging is a very difficult, and highly competitive, way to make a living. If I didn’t have a true passion for the topic of Web technology, I would not have been able to put in the ‘hard yards’ (I think that is a kiwi or rugby expression, meaning hard work).”

Congratulations to Richard on the article and his amazing success over the last year or so particularly! It’s great to see another local(ish) blogger (he’s in New Zealand) going full time and seeing real success in the blogging space.

Two weeks ago I asked readers for their opinion on whether external links on your blog should Open in a New Window?

The conversation that resulted in the question was fascinating with 129 comments left (so far).

Today I reread the full conversation and tallied up the results and was a little surprised by the end results. Last time I saw this type of debate (in a forum) there was a resounding feeling that links should not open in new windows – however in this conversation the split was much more even with strong arguments for both ways of approaching links.

In fact the end result ended up coming out in favor of opening links in a new window.

I should note that there was about 5% of respondents who I excluded from these results because they either didn’t express a direct opinion or gave some sort of an ‘it depends’ response.

Thanks to everyone for participating in the discussion. If you’ve not had your say yet you can still comment on the original post.

Bob has a good post detailing how he built up a blog on the domain Computers.net and sold it for $155,000.

I get asked a lot of questions about how to sell a blog – but as I’m yet to do it I thought I’d do a speedlinking type post on the topic and link to those who’ve had a little more experience with the process:

• Selling a Blog – Interview with Duncan Riley – an interview that I did with Duncan after the sale of Blog Herald.
• Technosailor Sale Update – Aaron Brazell had a few reflections on selling blogs after he cancelled the sale of his.
• Selling Blogs: Thick Skin is a Requirement - Ahmed shares a few reflections on Aaron’s experiences and some from his own as a blog buyer.
• Selling Your Blog: What are Blog Buyers Looking for? – Lorelle shares a few tips on the topic.
• Selling Your Blog: What Goes into the Selling Price? - More good tips from Lorelle
• Blogs for Sale – How Much is Your Blog Worth? – an older post that I wrote on the topic back in 2004
• Why You Can’t Just Sell Your Blog – The Sheriff shares a few thoughts on the topic

My own experience with selling blogs is limited to being an observer and my own approach is to keep ahold of web properties and to build them into ongoing revenue generation streams. I’m not anti selling blogs but it’s just not my style to this point.

The really big amounts that blogs have sold for have generally either come from very established and highly profitable blogs or from those who have something special (like a domain like computers.net) to offer a buyer.

Have you ever bought or sold a blog (or attempted to)? What did you learn from the experience? If you’ve written about it feel free to leave a link to your advice in the comments below.

This guest post has been submitted by my son – little ‘X’ – who turned 1 today. I thought it was an appropriate day for him to make his debut as a blogger.

I’ve been watching my Dad being a ProBlogger for a year now – here’s 5 things that I noticed about how he does it:

1. My Dad Reads More than He Writes

One question I hear a lot of people asking My Dad is ‘how much time do you spend writing each day?’ I think it’s a good question, but a better one would be ‘how much time do you spend reading each day?’ You see my Dad reads more than he writes. I think he does this because his writing gets better after reading what others say and because it means he’s learning more about his topics.

2. My Dad Talks All Day to Other Bloggers

Another thing my Dad does all day is ‘chat’ to people. He talks to them on his Skype headset, he types to them on his instant messenger and he even meets some of them in the cafe down the road for something called a ‘cafe lartay’. I think My Dad does it partly because blogging looks like a lonely job but also because it helps him blog better. It gives him new ideas, helps him get people to read his blog and link to it more and it even finds him partners to work with.

3. My Dad Only Uses a Few of the Ideas He Comes Up With

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