I would like to break them up, but what concerns me is that it will break the train of thought; and when people get to the 3rd part ‘within a part’ so to speak, they might not recall what came before it, and be left thinking, “Where is this guy going with this?”

It’s a tough call. But it I think it is worth experimenting with.

If there is actually a series in it, I back off and re-write it that way. If, despite being longer, it is actually reasonably well focused, it will remain in its long form. At that point I might edit for the –more– tag so as to leave a summary / teaser above the break and the filler details below it.

I have in mind to do a series on the churches of Detroit which are significant for their place in the history of this city. That won’t fly as a single long document … it would be of book length … so it will need to be broken down somewhat. But it also would not serve my readers to break things out any further than to focus on a single church at a time. That’s what sub-headings are for. When I consider a church’s funding, its pastors, its theological shifts and so on, these should be broken out via sub-headings.

Perhaps I would want first want to look at the overall picture of a churches membership growth, then breaking the membership figures out by decades. That would call for a sub-heading of “Membership by decade” with additional subheadings whose contents would include these numbers and relevant notes.

We now have:
(Title)Old McGillicutty Anabaptist
Theology
Some text lorem ipsum
Political Influences
Mo pizza, mo money, mo wank, mo lorem ipsum
Membership to zenith and current.
1900-1910
1911-1920

There is no rule of blogging that precludes intelligent editing of well-written material.

After reading your post here I must admit that I think my posts are too long. I will also admit that I send my posts out just once a month so I think I should send them out more often and make them shorter.

Personally, I do appreciate short posts but I envy the guys or gals who write well enough to keep my attention on the long ones.

“although I do find readers respond well when I write long pieces too”

I definitely find your blogs engaging.

btw: has anyone ever told you that you look like Gelman from the Regis and Kelly talkshow?! Gelman is the show producer I believe.

Anyway, great site, I enjoy reading here. I’m new to blogging as of last Fall and I love it (I love writing). Trouble is… I tend to get bored of my own blog (especially the templates). I’m never satisfied. How do you blog here with the same thing all the time? I don’t know why I can’t be content, but I never am. For instance, I just redesigned a site last week and already I’m sick of it that I don’t even want to post there and literally start looking for ways to change it.

Why do I do that? Does anybody else?

That’s what I’d like to know. I really want a cool flash site, like the movie sites, they’re always engaging and interactive, and then just add a blog tab in there… but I can’t afford the kind of money needed to buy Macromedia, etc. Plus I’m on a free blogging site at Blogger.com.

Does anyone have any good advice for a “change-agent” like myself? It drives me crazy, but this is the way I am!

P.s. my other website is http://mystereomagnetgirl.blogspot.com (there’s other blogs I have found on the main profile page). How am I doing for someone who is using the provided templates? On my ascreaming writer site, I’ve played w/ the template code a bit, but already I’m bored of that site too. I just changed the mystereomagnetgirl site yesterday actually and I’m starting to like it, it’s colourful and I like that (plus I love ‘orange’ b/c it’s a colour of adventure, which suits mystereomagnetgirl, and for whatever reason I always think of stereos as being orange too, or should be anyway, lol)

I’d sure love your advice. I’m sure I’m always going to be hard on myself though and will probably always bored of my own “stuff.” I tell you this though, when I’m on a roll w/ my writing, I’m sure passionate about it. Thanks for all your posts here about writing, they were fun and interesting to read… I have a real attraction to ‘words’ as any writer would I’m sure.

Thanks again.
Kimberley

They also seem to engage readers more and encourage comments.

However, this is a rather long post AND it has lots of comments.

Mike

1)Set up a image (like pro blogger do for series) and a tag in common for all the posts
2)in every post the image will link to the tag, then the user could see all the posts in one place or a text link also could work.

Thats pretty simple, but could cause some mess if the items should be in chronological order(1, 2, 3, etc), the tag must be exclusive, if i used “seo” for my example, the other posts i’ll write about seo will appear in the same tag, then “seo-series” or something else is better…

I started my blog with a really comprehensive article divided into 10 sections, all on 1 page. And people loved it. But once I got into adsense and site-ranking stuff, I changed the article into 10 separate articles, then the original page I changed into a table of contents for the 10 separate articles.. So far, so good!

You can see the table of contents at http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/apache-htaccess.html

I just write a post without thinking about the length. Some are short one or two paragraph posts and some end up being fairly lengthy. It just depends how much I have to say on a particular topic. That naturally provides a mix of longer & shorter posts.

By the way, from the perspective of running successful blogs, I’d agree that short posts in a series would work better than longer posts. I’ve also liked your idea of combining the two strategies; I think it’s a perfect fit.

Longer posts (like your 18 lessons on blogging), however, could be gems that readers would appreciate and read with pleasure for some time to come if they are timeless pieces.

Thanks for some more sound advice.

Cheers!

sometimes, a particular title governs a long posts but it might be wise to break it up into multiple series/parts … just like how george lucas made you hooked with the star wars series … also it created the desire for the readers to return for more …

readers nowadays are pampered with too much choices and you can only secure a couple of minutes of their time to your blog … maybe darren might be able to do an experiment by writing some damn long posts and see if there’re complaints or decrease in readership … should be an exciting experiment …

http://stocktube.blogspot.com

My preference for lengthy subjects is a series. However, I despise a series that posts randomly on a topic. (I’ve been guilty of it myself) I want to know when the next part in the series is coming.

Good thoughts Darren.

I prefer short posts at least it will keep the blog or site fresh. Search Engine bots also like to visit sites with fresh content. In addition, breaking up long post can help to increase the re-visit of first time visitors (with an interesting topic).