The problems we bloggers face pale in contrast to those faced by that kid on the left. He’s going to be waiting a long time for his next push.

So, keeping that in perspective, let’s take a look at a comparatively minor problem that seems to consume an awful lot of electronic “ink”.

Bloggers like words and, for the most part, actually enjoy a bit of controversy. After all, like a newspaper, controversy helps sell our writing. At present, one of the fun bones of contention in the blogging world is the concept of a single ‘ideal length’ for a post. This is the sort of ‘tempest in a teapot’ thing that can get bloggers all wound up and never even appear on any other radar screen. One side of the debate claims that most readers only skim the words on a page … and they have the server logs to support that claim. The other side has server logs showing that large quantities of readers actually read most, if not all, of these words of (more or less) timeless prose.

I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve read that a blog post should be no more than 350 words. Preferably less.

My own logs support the contention that there are reasonable numbers of people who come to a blog with the intention of reading at least one article to its conclusion. Its length seems to matter but little, so long as it is well written and soundly argued. My own readers tend to show up at least once a week and stay to read nearly 4 pages of my ‘timeless prose’.

Yeah, right. The numbers are there, but there’s gotta be a better explanation.

I suspect that the people who are expecting their readers to ’skim and go’ are writing articles that encourage exactly that behavior. They write ’sound bites’ tailored for the attention impaired. That sets up a reinforcement loop in their readers that it will be painful for them to break. Once you’ve gotten your readers accustomed to fluff … or, in a chicken v. egg world, attracted readers in search of the fluff you’ve been providing in large volume, how would you then write a longer treatise on, say, the trade-off between “corn as fuel” and “corn as food”?

I also suspect that people who invite their readers to sit back and enjoy (or even contribute their comments) will also find that those are the sorts of readers they are attracting. I know that this has happened on this particular blog. My logs won’t permit of any other interpretation. But I suspect that you won’t mind if I toss in an occasional shorter piece … so long as it was sufficient to cover its topic. I can explain, for instance, why I prefer to use a particular brand of dry-highlighter pencil for marking in my Bible in just a couple hundred words … and probably boost their sales a bit in the process. But I don’t think I could do justice to the UN warning on rationing of global food aid with the same brevity.

As I continue to learn this craft of writing for the internet (and you!), I hope that you’ll bear with me through the inevitable stumbles. It really IS my intention to provide you with a quality product (I have two series in the works at the moment) that earns your readership every time out.

No matter how few words it may take. Or how many. (601, today)

You might be interested in reading the article and comments from Bryan Eisenberg’s post at The Web’s Old Wives Tale: People Don’t Read Online

It wouldn’t hurt if you also skipped over to Darren Rowse’ blog from the link in Grokdotcom