How to Blog?

Slate has this good article with the same title (yes, read it if you are interested in becoming or becoming a better blogger). I agree with everything in it, except for one piece of advice that I often see bandied about but think is totally wrong:

Don't be too wordy. HuffPo says that 800 words is the outer-length limit for a blog post; anything longer will turn people off.

No. No. No.

This feeds nicely in what Ezra Klein wrote about it:

The specialized posts mix with the generalized posts -- in my case, health wonkery rubs elbows with garden variety political punditry -- and the two cross-subsidize each other. The rigor of the more technical work gives you credibility in the reader's mind and adds weight to the generalist posts. The generalist posts broaden the blog's potential audience and create access points that new readers wouldn't have if you let the blog become a repository of technical commentary.

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One sidenote here is that I find the question of "specialization" is interesting. Health care is not the thing I write the most about: Somewhere between 5 percent and 10 percent of my posts are health care related. During periods of political drama, that number drops further. Far more of my posts are on the Obama administration, and politics more generally. But people define blogs by what they produce that's different from their competitors, not by what they offer that's the same.

This is excellent advice - blog about everything that strikes your fancy, but also sometimes blog about your area of expertise. Mix it up, topic-wise, but also mix-it up format-wise: videos, pictures, one-liners, linkfest, short posts and, YES, long essays, especially in your area of expertise.

If you write a long essay in your area of expertise, people WILL read. Why? Because your blog post is likely to contain information they can not find anywhere else on the Web, let alone in the media.

So, even if you mostly post a bunch of quick-and-dirty posts on various topics, when you have something special to say, don't be afraid to write 2000 or 3000 or 4000 or 5000 words. People will read that. And bookmark it. And put it on social networks. And e-mail it to friends. And discuss it in the comments. And respond to them on their own blogs. Those posts are the real gems of the blogosphere.

And how do you become an expert on a topic? You could go the usual way, through school or practice. But you can also become an expert if you constantly blog about something over the years. You dig through the literature, you read other bloggers who write about it, you get corrected by commenters, and soon become a knowledgeable and respected authority. You may still know less (but not always) than a person who got a PhD in the topic, but you will certainly know more than a journalist who writes on that topic because the editor said so - because you write, and thus learn, with passion.

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It goes without saying ( until a clueless commenter stops to say it...) that if you are going to "write 2000 or 3000 or 4000 or 5000 words" you damn well better make it intelligent, easy to read, and well presented.

...tom...
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By ...tom... (not verified) on 27 Dec 2008 #permalink

A thousand words tends to be my limit. If there is more that needs to be said, I turn it into a series (I make sure to link the different posts to each other though).

Once I bookmark something interesting after reading a few stimulating paragraphs, this action - counter-intuitively - will typically indicate that I'll never ever return to it and finish reading it. I bookmark lots of stuff. I put stars on lots of stuff in friendfeed. I squirrel away lots of stuff in delicious. I never return to them.

If the Internet people ever stop putting new and further interesting stuff onto said network, then maybe I would go back to my bookmarks, starred things and other squirrelled items and finish reading them. Unfortunately, each morning google reader brings a new tide of stuff to store, star and squirrel. The information supermarket shelves are never empty.

I think Romeo is largely right - 99% of people just aren't going to spend more than 5 minutes reading one blog post. A series of posts, though, works well.

But in general I think the best advice is - mix it up. Short, long, funny, serious - variety is key.

Don't be too wordy. HuffPo says that 800 words is the outer-length limit for a blog post; anything longer will turn people off.

Ha!

Then how do you explain the popularity of my blog? ;-)

I dunno--I think if the text is animated and informative enough, people will keep reading. Some of posts that people keep coming back to on my (albeit so far short-lived) blog are some pretty long ones where I provided some (cathartic) commentary on graduate school, academics, etc.
As long as the text is efficient in its use of words, I suspect that longer blog entries will be read. But then again, I'm relatively new at this so I suppose time will tell.

HuffPo can speak for itself, as there is enough drivel there to make even 800 words seem endless sometimes. The political commentary on several sciblog sites is better reading any day.
Diversity on the menu is no bad thing, in content and length of posts. Some days we want to read a short short, the next day it's Our Mutual Friend. Saving longer posts as text or PDF to read in the offline hours works. Good writing shouldn't be insulted by speedreading.
The quirky bits let the readers know more about a writer's interests, sense of humor and aesthetics, all of which enrich the longer posts.

Orac: yes, I was thinking about you in particular: extremely long posts are your norm, yet your blog is immensely popular. It's because we know your long posts are worth reading through.

Yes yes yes!

This has been a (not so) secret to the success of many blogs. Be a resource. Let twitter and friendfeed cover the snippets.

I'm going jump on this bandwagon with my own "me too." The right length for a post is whatever constitutes enough space to cover the topic. Some of my most popular posts have been my longest. If you're posting the latest Hubble pictures, a simple "this is cool" is enough. If you're telling us about latest development in particle theory, two or three thousand words might not be enough. Science in particular (but not just science) is not a topic that very often lends itself to soundbites.

Serializing is sometimes a good idea, but only if the story has logical break points. Arbitrarily breaking off a narrative just because the word count has reached a certain predetermined number is just annoying.

Orac in 800 words? Ha ha ha. Just imagining it's ridiculous. Glad he won't be following that bit of mouse turd advice

SImple, Interested content and also usefull for its reader will drive good appreciation from other blogger..
Cheers..

Monique