When I started a blog about a year ago, I wondered what would bring subscribers. My idea was to feature a weekly writing exercise and a discussion about an aspect of book-writing, which is my teaching niche. I found traffic was hard to get at first, despite trying all the usual methods like guest blogging, signing up with rating avenues, etc. I put an RSS feed and got about 100 subscribers from that. But the real subscriber boost came when I got people to sign up from my website. My web person set up a sign up form and each time I taught a writing class, I had a signup sheet. Seems like people would sign up for "Free Weekly Writing Exercise" and give their email to me, rather than take the time to go to my blog and subscribe via the RSS feed. So although it took more work, getting the subscribers their weekly writing exercises, I now have close to 300 weekly subscribers. I wondered if anyone else has tried this method. The other comment I get a lot is that my blog isn't just about my life, thoughts, etc., but about writing techniques. It's a forum for my own area of expertise, yes, and I promote my classes and books via my blog, but people seem to like the writing freebie--weekly exercises. Any comments from other bloggers on the pros and cons of this idea: offering something substantial versus blogging about your life and times? I don't think people would follow my blog weekly if I were just writing about my own ups and downs of writing, but I could be wrong. Would love to hear your thoughts.