First, off thank for all the astoundingly valuable comments, once I shouted and pouted a bit. I am taking a couple of weeks to think through what I’ve heard and will do a version 5 of the Overview at that time.
But what has been interesting to me is that several people complained that the five sections of the overview was too much to read. "People are too busy now, to read all those words, " I was told. "It may have been fine the first time around, but these days you need to keep it shorter.
This is interesting. The five parts I posted came out to 3750 words. The book will be about 80,000 words. If I follow the pattern of posting interview notes and updates on all sorts of things, as Scoble and I did for Naked Conversations, it means that I will post about 250,000 words on Global Neighborhoods. Some chapters will contain 10,000 words or more.
This was all pretty popular when we did it back in 2005. But perhaps, as one person commented, "The Novelty has worn off."
Maybe. David Weinberger used his blog to some degree on his last book, "Small Pieces Loosely Joined." He didn’t to that this time for "All Things Miscellaneous." Taking the blog out of it makes it easier and faster to write a book. Your mistakes get caught by an editor, rather than the general public.
There’s just one catch. The blogosphere helped Naked Conversations to write a better book. We could not have done it that well without the collaboration of hundreds of bloggers. This weekend I received the quantity and quality of comments that have already significantly improved Global Neighbourhoods.
This may cost me some points in Technorati ranking. My goal however is to write a book much more than it is to bask in the glory of Technorati measurement. In the Big Media Era of paper publishing, now coming to a close, tabloids usually outsold more esteemed publications. I won’t call me esteemed, but I think many of you visitors are.
I think some of you will stay with me. I value you and I hope I provide some useful and interesting material, although I will have little choice but to go long on this book project. For those of you who want it, I will offer either a downloadable version or I’ll email a Word version to whoever requests it.
It will be interesting to see how it works now that the novelty has gone.
{ 4 comments }
Shel,
When a snow day cancelled an important lesson I'd prepared to teach last month, I posted the content to my teaching blog and made it "required reading." It was about 2,500 words, but you'd have thought I'd ask these college juniors to read War & Peace in one sitting. They complained, saying that posts beyond 600-800 words simply don't fit the medium of a blog. As you point out, we read book chapters of 10,000+ words all the time. But reading a book is truly a different mindset, not to mention easier on the eyes.
OK, that's a possible explanation. But you asked for input. I'm on it.
Will,
Every time my RSS feeds get overwhelming, I pare them down to 25. I slip the letter "a" in front and visit them in my NewsGator which appears inside my Outlook. I start adding on as I find stuff and read the rest on Google Reader. The whole deal with RSS is that I decide how to organize and when to dump.
Shel,
While I agree that long posts can seem more off-setting than shorter ones, my frustration comes when a blogger posts a "short" post with a dozen links that you have to visit to understand his point.
While the initial post takes much less time to read and is easier on the eye, now I have to go visit a dozen other blogs/sites to see what the point the original blogger is trying to make.
I'd much rather see medium range posts that sum up the points in each link. If I'm short on time (or attention span) I'll get the bloggers "readers digest" from his post alone, but can follow links to get more info if I want.
This seemed like the whole point of blogging to begin with.
I say keep it as short as possible while presenting the beginning, middle, and ending of your informational offering. Otherwise your wasting as much or more of my time than if you'd just posted a thousand words.
The alternative looks too much like spam to me, "Click here to make a Hundred Dollars!"
I ususally don't.
Thanks,
-Perry
Novelty… yes and no.
How many blogs do you have in your RSS reader.
Its rapidly approaching e-mail clogging status.
A long post is a commitment. On the other hand, a book is designed for going off line with.
The size of book is not going to kill the reader, look at the Harry Potter books; weightlifting for juniors
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