Blogging Contest with Asus Eee PC as Prize (well sort of)

The Blogger's Notebook Fund blog has an interesting premise. The blogger is, like most bloggers, struggling to earn money from her blogs. She has read about the Asus Eee PC and would like to have one to use for blogging at Starbucks and other WiFi'ed public places. But she has not earned enough to afford one. So she came up with a way to hopefully earn enough while at the same time help her fellow bloggers. Well, let me say paste her post here -


...It appears to be the ideal tool for bloggers like me. It is both small and light enough for me to toss into my tote bag and bring with me to Starbucks or other places with WiFi and let me post to my blogs from there.

The thing is I am still a struggling blogger and have not earned enough to buy one (US $299 - US $399). Actually the US $399 model appears to be the more ideal one since it has more memory and storage, not to mention a webcam. The question naturally that came to my mind is how to earn enough from my blogs to buy one.

Then it occurred to me there must be thousands, if not millions, of bloggers that are in my situation. So I thought - why not organize a blogging contest? A contest where bloggers will post one entry each, then the participating bloggers will select a winner from among themselves. And the prize? US$400 – enough to buy the Asus Eee PC. This way, at least a blogger, deemed deserving enough by fellow bloggers, will be able to afford the Asus Eee PC in a matter of weeks.

My idea is each participant will pay an entry fee of US$10. Once 45 bloggers have entered, the registration will be closed. (If there are more than 45 bloggers interested, then maybe we can have succeeding contests.) The bloggers then email me their entries subject to the contest rules. I will post them together with the blogger’s name. Once all posts are up, the participants will have a week to read and evaluate all them. At the end of the week, they will each vote, by comments, for their respective top three favorites. Participants will not be allowed to vote for their own entry.

The blogger whose post garners the most number of votes wins the $400 prize. If there is a tie, there will be a run-off, or as many as necessary, between or among those who tied, with all participating bloggers voting just one entry, until there is one winner.

So what happens to the extra $50? Since being the organizer, I can not join the contest, I figure I can earn a little for thinking of and organizing the contest. I think it is fair enough. After all I need to organize 8 such contests to be able to raise $400, actually more as I am subject to various transaction fees in receiving/withdrawing from my Paypal account. Besides there obviously is no guarantee we will reach 8 contests.

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Hmmm. Sounds intriguing. Actually am tempted to join. For $10, I get to publish my writing in another blog, get 1 in 45 chances to win an Asus Eee PC, and possibly my 15 minutes of Warholian fame. Not bad, eh?