“Competition” may not be the best way to describe ProBlogger Darren Rowse’s latest writing project.

That’s because Darren will be assigning the prizes worth $2,500 randomly to 10 lucky winners.

The last time round I set my sights on the $200 Amazon voucher.

This time round, the prizes look equally tantalizing, although I’d have to say my top picks are:

• The $100 Amazon gift voucher
• 30gb video iPod
• Nintendo Wii game console

Here’s the full list of prizes:

The Prizes

• DeveloperCube – a forum for web developers – is offering a $100 Amazon gift voucher.
• eMoms at Home is offering two free passes (worth $349 each) to a 12 week group coaching program that she’s running in January. The course (via phone) is about how to be more productive and build a business. Read more on it here.
• Thrive Web Marketing are offering a medium level webhosting package for a year that includes 100MB of webspace, 4000MB data transfer a month and more (worth $240).
• Rob Schaumer is offering a $100 gift card (of the winners choice) at GiftCertificates.com.
• The Blogging Times has offered $100 cash to their winner. Thanks to Minic for this prize.
• Information for Her Australia for Australian Women is offering $100 cash (via PayPal). This is a site for Australian women giving information on health issues, rural women, indigenous women and more.
• Poker on a Mac (a poker site for Mac users) is offering a 30gb video ipod to their winner.
• Dave Taylor from Ask Dave Taylor Tech Support and The Intuitive Life Business Blog is offering a copy of his book ‘Growing Your Business with Google‘ and $100 cash as his prize.
• 451 Press is offering one lucky winner a Nintendo Wii (worth $250). 451 Press is a blog network.
• bloglinkr is offering $100 cash or $500 in advertising credit on their service when they launch in the first quarter of 2007. bloglinkr is a new ad network exclusively for blogs and sounds like an interesting project to watch in the next few months.

(I put the prizes ahead because that’s what I’d want to see first if I was reading this post)

The writing project topic is “Reviews and Predictions” so it’s a retrospective/forward looking post. Once you’ve penned your posts you’d want to follow the submission deadlines Darren’s listed at: ProBlogger Group Writing Project – Reviews and Predictions.

If you’re keen on the prizes, it’s important to ensure that you follow the steps and get your entry submitted correctly.

The competitions writing project’s already drawn a fair number of entries with:

• 55 entries received on the first day (Group Writing Project – Day 1)
• 79 submissions from all over the globe (3 in languages other than English – a new record for a single day) on day 2 (More Reviews and Predictions – Group Writing Project Day 2)

Remember, submissions close Thursday (where you’re at), so submit it soon if you’re planning to participate.

Here’re some strategies I’ve been using in previous projects:

• Choose a Strong Headline: Other participants may not have the time to read all 100+ entries. Take an additional 1-2 minutes to mull over a powerful headline. I’d go further and say your headline is the most important part of your post. Spending 3 hours working on your content will come to naught if it doesn’t get read. A punchy, snappy headline like “$2,000 in Blogging Income in 24 Hours? Here’s How…” might get a little attention, wouldn’t it?
• Content Rich vs Pure Linkbait: Effort really shows and it’s more than likely readers can spot linkbait (intended purely to pull traffic, while providing little value) compared to creating a content rich post. If you’ve attracted readers to your blog, why not bring them the full 9 yards and provide a great experience and make new friends? I see the writing project as the opportunity to recruit a boatload of new readers. It’s important to have compelling content to draw your readers in, signup for the mailing list (and get the corresponding goodies like the Robert Allen free book). A strong post is one that is information packed, relevant to your readers and provides some form of benefit to your reader (If it’s a technique or tactic they can use immediately all the better)
• Model the Best: If you haven’t already submitted your entry, check out the other entries. What works? What doesn’t? More importantly, what techniques can you adapt to your own blog? How can you stand out from the crowd? What makes your blog posts unique?

For the last ProBlogger “How to” Writing Project, I wrote this post which continues to be one of the most popular on this blog:

–> 10,000 in your list in 30 days? Andrew Wee goes guerilla!