The Top 50 Australian blogs on writing

The Top 50 Australian blogs on writing

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Please Note: The list below is now out of date. An updated, more comprehensive version of this list with further enhancements is available here.

Welcome to the Top Fifty Writing blogs in Australia.

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Now, let's be clear here - that's not fifty blogs people have written but fifty blogs by and for writers on the act of writing; copywriting, screenwriting, novels, poetry, anything that involves putting words in the right order to build a coherent and creative message.

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Many people have recommended blogs to me for inclusion on the list over the last two weeks and not all of them were included. Sometimes, they weren't sufficiently about the act of writing. Even though the blog owner may be a writer, if the topics of the blog did not cover advice and observations on life as a writer, it wasn't included. A blog by a writer that only discusses their daily non-writerly activities could not be considered a blog about writing. Sometimes the blogs hadn't been updated for months and therefore could be considered to be inactive. Some blogs discussed books and reading but not writing and therefore did not fit the mould.

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This has transpired to be a harder list to compile than I expected, partly due to writers not being the best at publicising their blogs - online marketers they aren't. (Well, some of them are, but you know what I mean). There are some great blogs on this list that should probably get wider attention, except that they have yet to receive the publicity, links and exposure they deserve.

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Blogging is a fantastic way for writers - both professional and aspirational - to promote themselves and their work. After all, my blog has served me very well in opening doors and convincing the right people that I'm more than a few cute ideas and a keyboard.

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The idea is for this to become a useful resource for writers to discover other blogs for advice and networking as well as for the bloggers involved to gain further leverage by linking to each other and supporting the writers' blogosphere.

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So, without further ado, here are the Top 50 blogs about and for writers in Australia. (And yes, that's me at number 4.)

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	Title	Writer	Technorati	PR	Alexa	Total
\n 1	Westerblog	Scott Westerfield	35214	5	494893	\n 384,193 \n
\n 2	Justine Larbalestier	Justine Larbalestier	22365	5	634334	\n 399,232 \n
\n 3	Max Barry - He Writes Things	Max Barry	96893	5	462144	\n 439,322 \n
\n 4	CopyWrite	Jonathan Crossfield	108293	4	277468	\n 463,787 \n
\n 5	Barista	David Tiley	68604	5	855087	\n 489,621 \n
\n 6	Divine Write	Glenn Murray	325011	3	132155	\n 701,442 \n
\n 7	Heart Harmony	Ingrid Cliff	255263	2	336697	\n 722,602 \n
\n 8	The Story So Far	Valerie Khoo	293498	4	804451	\n 754,388 \n
\n 9	The Word According to Me	Alan Baxter	363704	4	1556399	\n 974,984 \n
\n 10	Brent Hodgson, Copywriter	Brent Hodgson	603078	2	185121	\n 1,040,102 \n
\n 11	Reeling and Writhing	Genevieve	234439	5	3249618	\n 1,134,363 \n
\n 12	Inside a Dog Writer in Residence Blog	The Centre for Youth Literature	363916	2	2031356	\n 1,170,187 \n
\n 13	Too Askew	Krissy Bradfield	119263	4	4234196	\n 1,266,102 \n
\n 14	A Writer's Life	CJ Levinson	324085	3	3666035	\n 1,407,292 \n
\n 15	Eglantine's Cake	Penni Russon	168116	4	5624198	\n 1,592,956 \n
\n 16	Misrule	Judith Ridge	411381	4	5161974	\n 1,743,776 \n
\n 17	Kyle Tully Blog	Kyle Tully	1363538	0	212458	\n 1,906,030 \n
\n 18	Speakeasy	Australian Writer's Marketplace	440133	5	6182669	\n 1,926,667 \n
\n 19	Maximum Results Copywriting	Kevin Francis	1363538	4	1463947	\n 1,956,327 \n
\n 20	Anne Whitfield	Anne Whitfield	663819	4	5896551	\n 2,143,129 \n
\n 21	Nothing Rhymes with Rachel	Rachel Holkner	1748541	4	995865	\n 2,247,714 \n
\n 22	JargonMaster	Simon Sharwood	662597	3	6367272	\n 2,286,051 \n
\n 23	Musing of an Aussie Writer	Brenton Tomlinson	832925	2	6705178	\n 2,573,961 \n
\n 24	Carole Wilkinson - News & Blog	Carole Wilkinson	1362006	3	4349862	\n 2,581,978 \n
\n 25	Trevor's Writing	Trevor Hampel	1748541	3	2587384	\n 2,616,018 \n
\n 26	Tom Cho	Tom Cho	552856	4	8821245	\n 2,617,105 \n
\n 27	The Thinkings of A Lili	Lili Wilkinson	663819	4	8994434	\n 2,762,706 \n
\n 28	A Passing Whisper	Gabrielle Wang	1748541	4	5312819	\n 3,111,105 \n
\n 29	Writing Tips Blog	Elizabeth Bezant	2494597	2	2438859	\n 3,382,369 \n
\n 30	Quillo: Torque	Jeremy Gordon	1748541	2	7249866	\n 3,598,514 \n
\n 31	Wordability	Bruce Williams	2493456	0	4219146	\n 3,837,285 \n
\n 32	JenJen	Jennifer Mills	1363538	3	12772100	\n 4,267,958 \n
\n \n 33	Literary Minded	Angela Meyer	5000000	6	49188	\n 5,209,838 \n
\n 34	David Brewster - Freelance Writer	David Brewster	3324827	3	8377452	\n 5,350,317 \n
\n 35 \n	Content Writer Micky's Blog	Micky Stuivenberg	4790403	0	1210546	\n 5,532,512 \n
\n 36 \n	Professional Writing and Editing	Anna (hfe)	5000000	0	185095	\n 5,537,019 \n
\n 37 \n	Trudi's Blog	Trudi Canavan	5000000	4	1250901	\n 5,550,180 \n
\n 38 \n	Author Journal	Wendy Orr	1363538	4	19455962	\n 5,554,730 \n
\n 39 \n	Dean Kennedy	Dean Kennedy	4978471	0	457828	\n 5,570,037 \n
\n 40 \n	The Creative Penn	Joanna Penn	5000000	0	680506	\n 5,636,101 \n
\n 41 \n	Word Nerds	Michael and Kirsty Gladkoff	5000000	3	1856091	\n 5,721,218 \n
\n 42 \n	Snappy Sentences	Sally Bagshaw	5000000	4	2173307	\n 5,734,661 \n
\n 43 \n	Web Copywriter	The Web Copywriter	5000000	0	1408987	\n 5,781,797 \n
\n 44 \n	Yonder	Peter Minter	1363538	4	20809894	\n 5,825,517 \n
\n 45 \n	Ocean Without End	Kelly Gardiner	2494597	4	15607258	\n 5,916,049 \n
\n 46 \n	The Empty Page	Lisette Ogg	5000000	0	2143855	\n 5,928,771 \n
\n 47 \n	Untangle the Web	Amanda Jephtha	5000000	0	3173931	\n 6,134,786 \n
\n 48 \n	Jennifer Fallon	Jennifer Fallon	5000000	3	4340724	\n 6,218,145 \n
\n 49 \n	The Story Department	Karel Segers	5000000	3	4683867	\n 6,286,773 \n
\n 50 \n	Australian Author	Bernard J Rossi	5000000	0	4327978	\n 6,365,596 \n

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The badge

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If you want to display your award on your blog, you can with this convenient 125x125 panel that links back to this chart. Just cut and paste the following code into your blog sidebar and let your readers know how successful your blog is.

<a href=\"http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/blog/2009/03/the-top-50-australian-blogs-on-1.html\"><img src=\"http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/blog/images/top50badge.gif\"></a>

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The formula

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The formula for ranking these blogs comes from the three most commmonly used methods of blog tracking; Technorati, Google PageRank and Alexa rankings.

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Technorati, for those of you unfamiliar, is a free online service that ranks blogs based on the number of other blogs linking back to them. Therefore it rewards blogs for their influence on the wider blog community in sparking conversation. As this is a highly important goal for a blog, it is given the highest weighting in the final score. As the maximum Technorati rating currently possible is just under 5,000,000, a blog that has yet to acquire a Technorati rank defaulted to 5,000,000. If this includes your blog, I suggest registering and listing your blog with Technorati. This will start your blog rising through the ranks and will improve your standing in future Top 50 lists.

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The second score is PageRank - a Google number out of ten given as a guide of the relative importance Google assigns to a webpage or site. Based on the number of links and the popularity of the keywords used within, PageRank helps a webpage appear within the Google results. PageRank is not seen as a major source of influence or achievement these days, so I have given it a lower weighting in the scores. This I have done by using the equation 500,000 X (10-PR). This gives a score of 500,000 for a blog with 0 PR all the way up to a score of 0 for a blog with PR 10 - one tenth of the weighting given to the Technorati and Alexa ranks.

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The third and final score is given equal weighting to Technorati. This is the Alexa ranking, assessing a website's traffic numbers and placing websites in order from 0 to over 25,000,000. Again, those blogs yet to acquire an Alexa ranking defaulted to a rank of 25,000,000. The more traffic a website receives over time, the lower the Alexa score. To provide the same wieghting as Technorati, it was necessary to divide the Alexa score by 5 to provide a figure between 1 and 5,000,000.

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Overall, this means that the maximum score a blog can receive is 10,500,000, with the top blogs being those with the lowest ranking overall.

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So the final equation used is as follows;

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Technorati score + (500,000 x (10-PR score)) + (Alexa score / 5) = final score.

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The runners-up

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But of course, there are more than 50 blogs on writing in Australia. Here are an additional 41 blogs that just missed out on the Top 50 but may climb through the ranks in future charts. There's plenty of undiscovered gems amongst these, so I recommend clicking through and subscribing to those that catch your attention. Maybe there's a new number one blog just waiting to be discovered.

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	Title	Writer	Technorati	PR	Alexa	Total
51	Writing and Editing Blog	Pamella Hewitt	4978471	3	7610604	\n 6,850,592 \n
52	Aussie Romance Writers	Group blog	1655777	0	25000000	\n 7,155,777 \n
53	Madrigal	Madrigal	2494597	1	21318117	\n 7,208,220 \n
54	Usable Words	Angus Gordon	4790403	1	10406695	\n 7,321,742 \n
55	The Rachel Papers	Rachel Power	5000000	3	10636866	\n 7,477,373 \n
56	7-On Playwrites	Group blog	2473598	4	25000000	\n 7,773,598 \n
57	Hanner Cymraes	Hanner Cymraes	2494597	2	25115699	\n 7,917,737 \n
58	Words Out West	Central West Libraries	5000000	0	12290892	\n 7,958,178 \n
59	Trust Me, I'm a Storyteller	Sharon Rundle	2494597	0	25000000	\n 7,994,597 \n
60	Straight on Juice	Girija Tropp	5000000	4	14778180	\n 8,255,636 \n
61	City of Tongues	James Bradley	5000000	0	14278466	\n 8,355,693 \n
62	Copywriting Success Blog	Shona Lynch	5000000	0	15265323	\n 8,553,065 \n
63	Outlier-nj	Noelle Janaczewska	4978071	4	18598098	\n 8,997,691 \n
64	Post-Teen Trauma	Simmone Howell	5000000	0	18547638	\n 9,209,528 \n
65	Frances Macaulay Forde	Frances Macaulay Forde	5000000	3	19731012	\n 9,296,202 \n
66	Amy Bradney-George's Weblog	Amy Bradney-George	4790403	1	20293027	\n 9,299,008 \n
67	MeriWords	Meri F Harli	5000000	0	19447709	\n 9,389,542 \n
68	The Circus Diaries	Andrea Lemon	5000000	4	22111352	\n 9,722,270 \n
69	See Merrill Write	Merrill	5000000	0	22675272	\n 10,035,054 \n
70	Simon Writes	Simon Hillier	4790403	0	25000000	\n 10,290,403 \n
71	Alison Stuart	Alison Stuart	4792167	0	25000000	\n 10,292,167 \n
72	Apple Girl	Virginia Lloyd	4978471	3	25000000	\n 10,328,471 \n
73	Sean Condon	Sean Condon	5000000	3	25000000	\n 10,350,000 \n
74	Adventures of the Jade Assassin	Dianne Owens	5000000	3	25000000	\n 10,350,000 \n
75	Alien Onion	Allen and Unwin	5000000	2	25000000	\n 10,400,000 \n
76	Anna Bennetts	Anna Bennetts	5000000	2	25000000	\n 10,400,000 \n
77	Girl in the Shadows	Maree Kimberley	4978471	0	25000000	\n 10,478,471 \n
78	Stephe Bowe	Stephe Bowe	5000000	0	25000000	\n 10,500,000 \n
79	Words 101	Words 101	5000000	0	25000000	\n 10,500,000 \n
80	Graham Storrs	Graham Storrs	5000000	0	25000000	\n 10,500,000 \n
81	Stephen Faulds Blog	Stephen Faulds	5000000	0	25000000	\n 10,500,000 \n

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Fire up your RSS readers, sign up to those email subscriptions and start reading some of the best local writing blogs out there! There's enough reading here to keep you occupied for months! If you know of any Australian blogs about writing that are conspicuious by their absence from this list, please drop me a line so that it may be included in the update in June. I plan to update this list every three months, so new blogs can be added, improving the quality of the list over time. Also, if you disagree with my categorisations or details, please correct me. I'm sure there are mistakes on this list and I'm eager to remove inaccuracies.

Congratulations to those blogs that made it to the top and encouragement to those that have the potential to move up by networking with those blogs round them.