Attention whores. This is what Chris Garrett calls people who deliberately bait A-listers to their blogs.

I am not knocking bloggers for wanting to be famous. Personally I would rather have a popular blog and be personally relatively unknown, but hey whatever floats your boat. What I do take objection to is when people write posts specifically and only to get an A-List bloggers attention. (This is why in this post I will not mention any bloggers by name, heh). This says to me that they would rather ignore their real audience to achieve an audience of one.

Like Nick Wilson, I too am an attention whore online ;) No I’m not a zombie fan posting automatic adulation to the powers-that-be, but I’m no snobbish iconoclast either. The “audience of one” is a very powerful proposition. These A-listers are sneezers, people who can effectively spread your message with viral speed. It’s not evil to blog with these people in mind. Oftentimes, what is relevant to them is also relevant to the other fishes in pond and vice versa. If because of your writing you attract some of these sneezers to participate in the conversation, then good for you; that’s one convert in the bag. If the A-lister decides to bring the “good news” to his network, then you may even have done your niche a service.

A-listers inspire. Write with the assumption that your target audience are all A-listers. It’s a very strong motivational tool. Once the thought that your audience has very little patience for so-so posts and recycled crap sinks in, you’ll be forced to improve as a blogger. Innovate or die.

The other important thing to remember is (and Chris points this out): do away with the whole blog caste system. Everyone has a worthy story to tell. No single caste has a monopoly on good stories. Link freely and link often.