Affiliate Marketing Secrets

I created my blog around four months ago and it is based on specific period in film history – a niche market but not too narrow. I have a few followers, post three times a week and around 50 to 100 page-views a day. I actively follow other similar blogs and comment on them. My blog has since stagnated with its growth, mainly, of comments/ followers/ page views. If anyone can give me tips to get my blog going again, that would be great!!!

I’m opening a website soon which lets users sign up and manage polls. Not going to go far into detail but the question is, how big do you have to be to give yourself some pay ($100-200 a month). I know it all depends on your site traffic and niche and such but I’m not aiming for anything as successful as formspring/twitter/facebook and I’m wondering how hard it will be to make this worth my time. I’m spending $800 on the site development and then will be working on bringing users to my website. I figure if I have 500 active members I’d get at least 50 page views from them and their friends every week, giving me 25000 page views a week and 100,000 a month.. Even at a lot CPM this would be a decent profit for me, right? I know I cant guarantee page views but how terrible does this idea sound? Thanks! 😀 open to ANY and ALL suggestions/comments.

I am just wondering, because I know there must be some sort of self-marketing trick to it. Some “not-so-good” artists have millions of page views, and some phenomenal artists have virtually none, so I know that it must be at least PARTIALLY unrelated to quality.
I am an artist who began submitting my work on the site about three months ago, and I have hardly any page views at all.
I am not asking that people LIKE my work, only that they have the opportunity to actually see it and give me some feedback.
If there are any secret tips that have eluded me, could someone please share?
thank you!