The Hub Challenge

Do you want to publish a more regular stream of Hubs, but can't find the motivation? No worries- we've all been there, and sometimes all we need is a little support.

To get you publishing Hubs like a pro in no time flat, we've got the Hub Challenge, which manifests itself in a myriad of ways, but for the most part involves publishing a certain number of Hubs in a certain number of days. The most common Hub Challenges involve publishing 100 Hubs in 30 Days or the more sanely paced 30 Hubs in 100 Days, but you can set whatever goal you’d like!

There are a couple of straightforward reasons why joining the Hub Challenge is beneficial:

• Because you have publicly declared your goal, you're more likely to hold fast to it!
• You’ll get support, encouragement and inspiration from the community.
• By being very social about your challenge, you can increase pageviews and get new Followers.
• It is a great opportunity for you to improve your writing and Hub quality.
• It can jump-start your writing discipline, setting up a writing routine that you can hold to even after your Hub Challenge is over.
• You can increase your ad revenue.

It is exceedingly easy to start a HubChallenge- all you have to do is...

1. Go to the Hub Challenge section of the Forums (you can get there quite easily by looking at the lefthand sidebar- it's officially titled "HubChallengers") and click through.
2. You'll find some helpful guidelines and a sticky thread where HubChallengers can post links to Hubs they're publishing during their writing marathons- take a look around to acclimate.
3. Take a look at some of the Forum threads below- you'll see that some fellow Hubbers have grouped together for a challenge and are sharing encouragement and tips as they go along, and others are going it alone and simply seeking a bit of cheering on.
4. At this point, you can decide how you'd like to start your Hub Challenge. You have the option of posting a new topic and starting your own thread, and you also have the option of joining in with someone else who has already started. Not sure what to do? Simply follow your heart!!
5. Publish, publish, publish- once you've committed yourself to the Challenge, the easy part is over and the hard work begins. There's no getting around the fact that you'll have to work hard- this is a Hub Challenge after all- not a Hub Nap- but you can do it!

Good luck!

There are some extra things you might do, aside from just writing and sticking to a schedule, to make your Hub Challenge experience into an enjoyable success:

• Stay active in your thread- cheer others on and check back for comments, tips, words of encouragement, and advice!
• Check out other Hub Challenge threads and share your tips and lessons learned with your fellow Hubbers. Helping others really helps you!
• Consider creating a Hub chronicling your experiences- this gives you another way to get feedback on your hard work, and also allows you to document your experiences in one centralized place, if the Forums seem a bit too liquid for you. You also can use this Hub to evaluate how the Challenge has altered your ad revenue and page views. Jeffrey Neal's Hub of this sort serves as a good example.

Not too long ago, the entrepreneurial Hubber sunforged launched a special 60 Day Challenge that made quite an impact on the HubPages community.

The 60 Day Challenge involves more than just churning out new Hubs. Over a period of 60 days, participants busied themselves with setting goals, team building, finding a niche, promoting their work, altering existing Hubs, improving SEO, and publishing new work. Check out sunforged's 60 Day Challenge Curriculum Hub to find a detailed outline of the challenge along with links to more specific guides and resources.

Though the original 60 Day Challenge is over (it took place in April and May of 2010), its participants are still enjoying the lessons they learned and success obtained from the process. Word has it that sunforged is planning another challenge soon, but that doesn't mean you have to wait- you'll always have the option to refer to his advice and carry on an equivalent effort with a group of your HubPages buddies.