According to a post on the HubPages Hub the HubPages writing contest was discontinued as of December 31, 2006. However, the contest's Idea Bank will continue to be available and will continue to be updated with new ideas.

As a frequent winner of the contest, my PayPal account and I are sad to see the contest end. It was a great source of easy money. The reason it was so easy to win was because only a few us bothered to submit entries and, of the few who did submit, only the entries from U.S. residents qualified for the drawings as laws in many countries do not allow such contests. Thus, good writers, like Jimmythejock, who submitted entries regularly, could not qualify for the daily drawing.

From a business point of view it makes perfect sense for the owners of HubPages to discontinue the contest. After all, the purpose of the contest was not to channel prize money to people like Moonmaiden, Realache, GreyFox, and a few others, including me, but to get people to write Hubs on topics that web surfers are looking for.

HubPages and its writers make money through Google and other ad revenue. If people don't visit a site, the site doesn't earn any ad money and people are not going to visit a site unless they feel they will benefit. After all, how often do you watch a TV show, not because you like it, but because you want to help the actors and producers by boosting its Nielsen Ratings? Or, how many magazines do you buy, not to read, but to boost their circulation so they can charge higher ad rates due to the increased sales of the magazine?

The web is no different. Just like magazines, newspapers, radio and television, advertisers pay to place ads in these media based upon the number of people likely to see the ads. The only difference with the web is that advertisers will place ads on any site but only pay when people visit the site and view the ads.

Yes, I entered the contest regularly and, when I had time, would enter multiple entries on the same day in order to increase my chances of winning. But, in writing my contest entries, I took a longer view and did my best to make them interesting so that people would be attracted to them long after that day's contest was over.

I also saw the contest as an opportunity to write articles on topics someone else had already gone to the trouble of researching and had determined that these topics were something many people wanted to read. Media people pay big bucks for such information and HubPages not only gave it to us for free but offered additional financial incentives for us to use the information.

I have benefited greatly from winning the HubPages writing contest many times. However, in a couple of weeks I will be receiving a check for $112.24, not from HubPages but from Google for AdSense revenue I have earned from writing and publishing on the Internet. $80.46 of the $112.24 is revenue earned from people reading my articles on HubPages during the month of December 2006 alone. The balance represents Google AdSense earnings from everything I have written and published since I joined the AdSense program in January of 2004.

Again, most of the additional $31.78 is from people reading my HubPages articles from mid-September 2006, when I first joined HubPages, through November 2006. Since Google only sends checks when an account has a balance of $100 or more at the end of the month, accounts with less than $100 are carried over until the balance reaches $100, it has taken three years for my balance to reach the $100 mark but, given that I was able to generate $80 from HubPages in December alone, I expect to be able to begin generating at least $100 from HubPages each month during the coming year.

To reach this goal, I will use the following tools which HubPages provides to me for free:

1 I will continue to check the Idea Bank regularly for ideas for articles and write articles on these topics.

2 Regularly (i.e., every time I sign on to HubPages) check the My Account page to review the list of my Hubs and the traffic they are generating. The traffic is listed for the last 4 Hours, Last 24 Hours, Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days and Ever.

  - The last 4 hours and last 24 hours are good indicators as to how brand new hubs are doing, although these often take a few days or weeks to take off.

  - The last 30 days and Ever are good indicators of topics that are good. I often write about holidays and, being seasonal, I can usually expect their numbers to fall off after the season – but there can be surprises as Leif Erikson Day (a little known holiday celebrated in Minnesota and Wisconsin in October) continues to draw readers regularly.

  - By clicking on the title at the top of each column you can re-sort the report to see your hubs in alphabetical order (click on Title), by page visitations (click on Last 4 hours, Last 7 days, etc.) by Comments, etc. You can also click on the tabs at the top of the page to obtain additional information.

  - My Traffic identifies the search engines and web pages where the search for your article originated. You can visit the web pages to learn more about the interests of the people who visited that page and, by extension, went on to your page.

  - By looking at the extension on a search engine (i.e., the .com, .net, .in, etc) you can learn more about where your readers are coming from and what their interests might be. Most will be from Google.com but you will also get sources like Google.uk (Google in Great Britain), Google.in (India), Google.ca (Canada), etc.  See my Hub entitled Cyber-Geography - Internet Country Codes Explained for a listing of countries and their codes.

  - The My Fan Clubs tab lists your fans – the more fans the better as, if they allow it, HubPages will automatically send them an email every time you publish a new hub – this can result in instant readership.

  - My Referral Trackers shows not only the referral trackers (codes put into links you send to others) you use but the number of members who sign up under you and the total number hubs each group has created – Remember you also get Google AdSense revenue generated by your referrals.

3 Promote your HubPages. HubPages provides you with automatic links to Digg.com, Del.icio.us, and Readit!.com. These are link sharing sites and every time you publish a new Hub you should at least click on the digg this page link and do a quick write up on the Digg.com site and this will generate traffic. If you have time, the other two can also be helpful.

There is more you can do, but the tools above are placed at your finger tips by HubPages and it makes sense to use these tools.

Maybe you are not interested in making money but merely want to see yourself in print or have people read what you say. This is fine.

However, if no one reads your work, why go to the trouble of publishing it in the first place. I can see myself in print by doodling on a napkin while eating in a restaurant. I can publish (which simply means distributing a work for others to read) my work by writing something, running off a couple dozen copies and tossing them in the air on a windy day – a couple might land next to someone and they might read it.

If you really want to be read, you have to first write what people want to read and then make them aware of the fact that you have written what they want to read. By writing to attract an audience, you not only help yourself (for the pleasure of having people read your work, for money, or whatever) but you also help your fellow HubPages writers because, once a person lands on HubPages they may stay and browse further. The author who first attracts the person gets the most benefit, but the reader can move beyond to other Hub authors. Writing good articles is good for you directly and, indirectly, good for your fellow Hub authors.