I was thinking of submitting an article to several hundred blogs (through a service), but each blog will have a copy of the exact same article right? Doesn't Gooogle not like that? If not, what's the best way to do what I'm trying to do?
Yes certainly google doesnot considers if a single article is submitted to all the sites. Some variation is required. I have been using http://submitedge.com for the article submission service as their service has been very helpful to me.
In my opinion there is no best way. What you should do is write real interesting and valuable content. Content that will get linked by itself on hundreds of blogs. Quoting Pavlina "I will only make a million dollars when i will be able to write a million dollars valuable content"
How though? How would those blog-writers find out about it unless you're trying to actively get the word out there about your site?
Hmmm . . . You raise a good point but isn't that for blogs? I don't have a blog, but just a general site with lots of good articles on a fairly focussed topic. Does that make a difference?