Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

I ask myself that question every day when I post, wondering if I should chop my extra paragraph about some sort-of-related-but-not-really point about writing or if I should keep my post short and simple for your overtaxed web reading list.

Today journalist Mark Oppenheimer wrote a piece for the Huffington Post meditating about the best length for a web-based pieces, giving good advice for writers looking to pitch stories online: "Slate pieces circle around 1,000 words, sometimes more, sometimes fewer. Salon will go more screens, and so longer... Interestingly, bloggers tend to go longer than more traditional journalists on the web, and the lengths are more palatable in the single-screen typepad of Blogspot format." 

Interesting enough. But then, over at The New York Times, I found this REALLY, REALLY long essay by documentary film genius, Errol Morris. While I loved his obsessive look at war photographs, I was sure that nobody else would ever read something that long. At the bottom, he had over one hundred comments.

The lesson is simple. Stop worrying about length! Write good content, and let your readers sort out the rest...