I'm by no means an established writer. So take this opinion with a grain of salt. But I think the time of fast turn-around blogging with the use of a single news source as primary to support an obvious opinion is coming to an end. The reason for this is because too many people do it and the process doesn't offer much additional content to entice readers. This is a somewhat obvious opinion, yet there are piles of people who want to start blogs doing just this.

If you want to pull in readers, go get sources that aren't easily available on the Internet. Go to books. Interview someone on your own. Take your own photographs. Pull it all together in a crafted piece and take the time necessary to get it right. That also means revise the work before publication. Sure, pass a rough around among friends or in a small community to get critique. But don't publish initial rough drafts. They always suck.

You know what drives hits? Recipes. Self-help advice. Pop trivia. Extreme opinions that piss people off. And completely original content. Put together something that goes beyond topics on the 24 hour news cycle and write for the Google search market. Create something that has staying power. Prepare to write longer pieces beyond just a thousand or two thousand words. And screw all those people who say you have to post a short piece every day. Even if that's true, it doesn't teach you how to write long form for newspapers and magazines professionally; much less books.

Finally, if you want to write fiction and are new to the craft, consider going to Literotica under a pen name and posting pr0n. There are a pile of readers there. You'll get thousands of hits off the bat, and the rating system will quickly show you piece by piece what works and what doesn't. Use the place as a means to test technique and craftsmanship, then walk away and move on to more traditional venues.

Hope this helped. Again, JMO. And I'm sure there are other folks better able to give a pro opinion on the site. I'll poke my head in here again and to see what others have to say.

I'm not totally sure what "organically spreading" really means. People organically coming across your work happens occasionally, but it's going to happen a lot more if you put it out there.

I have a (really average) modicum of success with my writing. I managed to live off it for a month or so after my book release, but that was about it. It's going to be a passion rather than a main source of income for a long time, and I'm okay with that. I've picked up writing jobs here and there, ones that get me actually published, but they're all pro-bono/volunteer, which I'm okay with because they hold the promise (well, one of them, at the very least) of paid work sometime in the future, and it's writing that I enjoy (I mean, reviewing albums I love is something I do anyway, the only difference is that the published works are slightly more formal/polished).

But I guess it's not really about the money.

The best way, I think, to get your work out there (aside from pandering to specific markets, etc... I'll stay out of that area...) is to maintain an online presence. It's something I write quite a bit about in relation to music, and working with live bands once a week means I see good and bad examples of it all the time. Some acts, the ones that tend to do well, are, at the very least, really active on Facebook. They post at least once a week. I see others who haven't posted in 6 months - not even the fact that they're going to be on live radio that very night. The link between activity and success isn't a totally solid one, and (at least, in the music biz) having a Facebook alone but no soundcloud/bandcamp etc isn't enough, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

Having that presence is going to make you connections, too - something I owe a lot to. My small-time (again, volunteer) radio job I owe to knowing people, and now, knowing the boss I have here has helped so much. I got to go to a pretty darn big industry, invite-only event earlier in the year at which I met even more people. In terms of writing, I went along to an event/panel at the city library last month or so and did a really quick, shoddy write-up of it, posted it on twitter, Facebook, etc, and it got retweeted and commented on by the library, librarians, local writers, those who held the event. I'm friends with a few of them now (not close friends, to be sure, but the sort of friends who I enjoy talking to simply for talking to - and they have the benefit of being in the industry I want to be in). The publicity of that post brought in a few readers, and even a few who went back and read a bunch of older posts.

Hell, I have a hubski-related example: after talking here about radio work etc, I got a message from ButterflyEffect asking if I could get an album on air here (I'm in the process of trying at the moment, and at the very least I expect to be able to pass it on to a few hosts) and he sent me a digital copy. After listening and enjoying, I spent literally five or ten minutes writing something really short about it (I was exhausted and had some time to kill in the middle of a really long day) and posted it to my blog, sent it to him, etc. His publicising that mini-review brought in a reasonable amount of traffic (thanks for that, by the way, BE).

Social media is a huge advantage. I let slip every now and then, but I try to stay active at least on twitter, and to write and post something at least every other week, and it really is worth it.

So, yeah, what TNG said: take advantage of any avenue you can find to share what you have. Alongside that, keep up a profile that isn't just your writing - there's no guarantee that people who enjoy what you as a person have to say will enjoy what you as a writer produce, but usually there's a lot of overlap, and people are obviously more likely to check out something if they know the person who made it (as Floatbox said).

Really appreciate the advice! I want to reply to each comment, but am about to crash after working all day. I'm going to create a louderwords account and share with the hubski community, which I was hopeful would be receptive to my writing but the healthy response to my question and the other projects it seemed to help coagulate makes me feel even better.

As far as spreading your writing without shilling it around, it can be tough... No doubt. It's hard to get people to read things these days, but make no mistake--there's an audience for just about anything out there. The hard part is finding the audience.

To be honest, I'm working my ass off to get published right now (while working through school), and while I have a blog, I don't update it much as I spend most of my time working on my novel. However my best advice is consistency. On the blog you have now, keep pushing out content on the regular. I have a few friends who started blogs from nothing, having no readers but me and their girlfriends and now have regular readers. It's mainly a matter of persistence and perseverance, keeping your site fresh is huge. Over time, people will start to recognize your work, although it may be very slow. Just gotta keep working hard to improve your craft and you will find an audience. Find what your 'niche' is, and cater to it. For example one of my buddies is a writer but he loves typewriters, collecting them as a hobby. So he posts pictures of his collection along with his work and he has gained a nice readership.

And as thenewgreen has already mentioned, use the avenues available to you like reddit, Hubski, CritiqueCircle, Absolute Writer's Watercooler Forum... There's tons of sites out there. Hell, I just started posting my work to this site and have already gotten some good feedback.

Also, I'd be down to participate in a podcast on writing. It's not just my passion, it's my life... And I love talking about it with others. And your podcasts are primo dude.

I saw this post last week but things have been really busy. I'm going to give it a thought and try to come up with a better response than what I have now.

Also, thenewgreen I don't think my shoutouts are working. I haven't been getting notifications in my inbox for them. (Am I looking in the wrong place? Should I only get them via e-mail?)

Also, thenewgreen, I'd definitely in to participate with the podcast.

I'll participate