Update: Contest is closed. It’s time for the jury to play its part. All entries will be made public with the contest winners announcement post, next Monday. Thanks to everyone who submitted their entries to this group writing project. It will be a very interesting reading!

The end of September brings a killer contest on Blogsessive under the form of a group writing project for all blog owners, and, since this is a killer contest, your skill can win you some killer prizes. Here’s what the contest winner will get:

  1. One identity package – logo, business card and letterhead design – by yours truly;
  2. One “Personal license” for the Edge premium WordPress theme, created by Blog Design Studio that as you probably have guessed, offers blog design services;
  3. 500 business cards printed using your newly won design by U Printing, company that offers business cards and business cards printing services.

Also, there will be 2 consolation prizes, each of 250 business cards by the same U Printing.

What is a group writing project and how to participate?

A group writing project brings together bloggers with the same interests, all writing and publishing blog posts on a given theme/topic. The topic is usually decided by the one that initiated the project, which is me in our case.

Everyone who wants to join, has to publish a blog post until a specified deadline. This group writing project will end on September 30th, which will be the last day that we’ll accept submissions.

The Topic: How to connect with (engage) your blog readers

I’ve talked about engaging writing before, so you can take a quick look and see what’s this about, but I strongly suggest that you write your own posts. Do not recycle, do not rewrite, do not use old posts from your blog or other people’s materials!

How to submit your entry?

You can submit your contest entry by using Blogsessive’s contact form and following these requirements:

  • From the subject drop-down box select “Group Writing Project”;
  • Fill in your name and a valid email address(!);
  • In the website field insert the link the blog post to be considered as a contest entry. Do not put your home page there;
  • In the message field you can tell us a few words about yourself.

Contest entry validation

For your entry to be considered valid it has to follow the above steps and also contain an exact reproduction of the following paragraph (copy-paste works) at the end of the post:

This is an entry for Blogsessive’s Group Writing Project & Contest. Supported by U Printing and Blog Design Studio.

No need to display it in a block quote as above, only the text contained in it. If you think it’s easier to copy and paste exact code, here’s the piece of code to add to your posts:

This is an entry for <a href="http://blogsessive.com/blogsessive-news/group-writing-project/">Blogsessive's Group Writing Project &amp; Contest</a>. Supported by U Printing and <a title="Blog Design" href="http://blogdesignstudio.com/">Blog Design Studio</a>.

I know that some people disregard this type of links, but consider this: the above prizes sum up to about $1000 and sponsors should have their gain in this, for you to benefit more. And also…

3 more reasons to join

If the above contest prizes are not enough, here are 3 more reasons to join in:

  1. At the end of the project, a list with all valid entries will be published on Blogsessive with do follow links and also, GroupWritingProjects.com will publish the contest results;
  2. At the end of the project you’ll a more experienced blogger, with a better understanding of your readers’ behavior and you will discover more ways in which you can connect with them.
  3. Write a great post and other participants and readers will most likely talk about it and link to it on their own blogs.

Again, the rules in brief

To recapitulate:

  1. Write a good post on “How to engage your readers”;
  2. Include the required paragraph as required above;
  3. Publish it until September 30th and use the contact form to announce your entry;

Winner and the jury

There will be only one winner of the big prize and 2 consolation prizes, as stated in the beginning of this post. All entries will be analyzed and graded by the contest jury and those with the highest grades will be elected winners.

The jury members:

  • Alex Cristache (me);
  • Alina Popescu of Words Of A Broken Mirror;
  • Tibi Puiu of Lost Art Of Blogging;

As me and the other jury members are all anxious to read your wonderful entries on such an interesting topic, I encourage you to head to your writing space and give it your best, because the prizes are well worth it! Good luck and inspiration, friends!

A big thanks goes out to Jacob of Group Writing Projects for his help in spreading the word about this!