I have an established blog (check sig link) with PR3, alexa 150k, 4+ years of age, 1000+ posts and lots of inbound back-links. Not too different from an established article directory, is it? So I'm thinking... why not allow users to publish content for free, for mutual benefit? You can submit a guest post proposal if you like; this would be free of charge (of course) and I'll let you include up to three self-serving links. If your niche is interesting or I can think of a unique spin to it, I can even write the article for you! In this case you'd focus exclusively on building links to your article ... just like you probably do for article submissions. Advantages: You would have direct contact with the site owner (me). We could put our heads together and develop mutual synergies. You help my website grow indirectly by building links, and get added value from it. I'm focused on expansion, so your self-serving links will likely be stronger in time. You may be surprised to realize posts in this blog rank fairly easily. If anyone is interested, just let me know! You will have to submit original content though (no pre-spun crap, please); if I end up doing the writing, you must comprise to build a reasonable amount of links to your post.
cool idea actually as incontent links from blog posts are what you want. If you'd publish online games related articles, Id be down. Shoot me a PM!
Since this is a generalist blog, I can publish pretty much anything; I'm not too picky at all, but there are two vital points though: 1 - Original content only, no pre-spun or re-written crap. Fun and upbeat content is preferred. 2 - Your Self-serving links must not point to pharmaceuticals/adult/gambling websites, or thin affiliate sites. That's it! Anyone who's up for this is most welcome to contact me.
Quite difficult to approve really original content, and you need just original content for your site success.