Do blog entries have to be short?

They don’t have to be anything. It all depends on what your readers want.

You can post whatever you’d like but brevity often makes for a more entertaining daily read. I know I don’t visit blogs that are essay length because I don’t want to read that much every day.. just something short and to the point. But like @Ivan said.. it’s all about what your readers want.. or readers be damned.. what you want.

Like they’ve said: do what you want with your blog; there are no rules.

(I’d like to read your blog)

I have seen plenty of both. Read around the different blogs you have access to and find out. If they are interesting, they can be several paragraphs long, or more, and everyone will still want to read them. I have several that are outstanding, and I can hardly wait for the author to write a new one. The most interesting ones usually add a new one every week or less. I have one correspondent who is an American teacher in China and her blogs are so interesting, she has published a book.

No. It’s your blog and you can write however you want. You don’t have to entertain the masses or cater to a set group of followers. It doesn’t have to be a popularity contest, if you just want it to be your own personal expression that’s fine. I read long blogs. I prefer them.

I used to write a blog over at xanga; I don’t bother anymore because I like to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out when I write, and it seems like too many people have the attention span of a 5 yr old with ADHD. I love to read long essay types of things as long as they interest me. Someone rambling on and on about celebrity worship or something pretentious like that bores me right out of my skull.

Of course, I’m the guy that likes spiders and bugs, and enjoys stuff of a rural and natural feel, and I despise any city larger than 70,000 inhabitants, so I’m likely to not be a good subbie for most blogs.

Tis better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.

I love the http://daringfireball.net format. John uses a “linked list”, short commentary entries, and once every 2–3 days he’ll push a long, in-depth analysis piece.

Hot tip to come out of Daring Fireball: Write for yourself, and anyone who’s exactly like you.

You’re not the only person with your interest and taste, and write for the other yous out there.

Good luck writing, and be sure to send me a link please – I’d love to see.

I’m reading this book as we fluther. It’s about writing, teaching and teaching writing. This guy says that the first five rules of writing are:

1. Don’t bore the reader.
2. Don’t bore the reader.
3. Don’t bore the reader.
4. Don’t bore the reader.
5. Don’t bore the reader.

Isn’t part of the fun bouncing your opinions off other people?

I’m confused as to the whole “ignore your readers” mantra some people seem to have.

It’s about catering to a small target group and writing about what you love, right?

If you don’t want readers, why publish publicly?

Several of the blogs I read will have a set length on the main page that is often shorter than the post. You then have to click through or expand the post. This only is an issue on higher volume blogs.

If you’re making a once a day personal blog, you shouldn’t need to worry about entry length.

Thanks for the input… you’ve actually prompted another question. Does one have to post every day? I’m thinking more like weekly.

For those who want to see it in its infancy, the link is on my profile. Don’t expect much, there are only 2 entries so far – both short!

It’s YOUR blog. Post what you want, when you want. People will pick and choose what they want to read, anyway, and you can’t please everyone all the time. Just do it for yourself, and have fun with it, and you’ll get some loyal readers.

I totally just subscribed to your blog with my Google Reader, so I won’t miss anything. I’ll even read the long stuff. :D

My friends rarely post to their personal blogs every day. I do find that I follow better if know there is going to be a fresh post every other day or so. I agree with MacBean that there are no rules on how, when, and how much you post. I would recommend posting as frequently as possible so long as you aren’t stretching to find interesting things to post about. Also, weekly is a nice format if you’re thinking of doing more in depth analysis type writing. I know you said earlier you tend to write in an essayish format, so this could really work out.

As @evelyns_pet_zebra quoted. It is better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for a public and have no self. There really are no rules when it comes to your blog. Like @MacBean said, it’s YOUR blog. Write how, when and what you want. You can write anything, not write anything – maybe just put a picture you like/that caught your attention, a quote, lyrics to a song…anything that describes what you are feeling and what you are about that day. Readers and people who interact/comment are added bonus.

Not sure about anyone else, but when I’m reading ANYTHING longer than 2 paragraphs on the internet, my eyes start to wander and I start to lose interest. (Alas!)

I love it when the blogs I read bold the key sentences, divvy sections up with nice headers or use bulleted lists. That way, I can skim through the blog entry, see what catches my eye, and read into either some or all parts of the entry. This type of set up allows me to feel connected to what’s going on, while not having to dig into paragraphs.

It depends on what mood I’m in as to whether or not I read an essay on the net, dalpetrie’s essays on here are usually good fun and interesting. With blogs sometimes I skim read to get the jist and then go back to it later when I am in more of a reading mood or have more time.

Good luck with your blog and I am sure you will get many like minded people enjoying it!

I just started blogging , you write what you want as long or as short as you like .
Well thats what i do anyway , people may be different

tumblr is usually used for short stuff. Like a line of text or a image. I don’t really expect to see long stuff there. That was kinda the point of creating the site. It is like the Twitter of blogging.

But I slapped this together if you want to use it. I will host it and do all the tedious stuff. Just ask and I will send you a username and password.

And I can do the same for anyone else too.

And I will only charge .00 cents per month.

http://www.pillowpersuasion.com/augustlan/

@johnpowell that’s really nice of you =]

Generally speaking, you do whatever you want with your own webspace. But since you are at a tumblr blog, the etiquette there is (from what I’ve seen) to post smaller posts. It’s so easy to set up your own blog [so easy that it was done for you already :)] where you can post your bigger entries, then you can post a link on the tumblr blog (thus satisfying the “short entry” criteria) for those interested in the long read.

I host my own blog at myreallifename.com, thus I have fun posting whatever I feel like. Of course, I really blog for myself, I have no clue how many people look along nor do I really care to find out. Usually when I feel like focusing in depth on a topic, I will make a sub-blog dedicated just to that information so I can theme it and organize it distinctly. Setting up Wordpress (and thus installing a blog) is so easy to do, it pretty much installs itself! And for those who aren’t interested in doing the maintenance, Wordpress offers free blogs on their site as well.

You can post as frequently as you like, however I would suggest deciding upon an interval, like weekly, daily, every two days, every
Monday by noon—whatever. The interval encourages you to write, and also gives your readers something to look forward to.

Blogging is whatever you choose to make it!

Some people can write at length and remain entertaining. Other people lose focus if they have to write more than two paragraphs. So the answer to this question really depends on you more than anything else.

At the same time, I’m not familiar with tumblr—if it encourages a culture of short posts, you may not find your audience if you’re a long-form writer and you post there. The solution to that is not to change yourself, especially if you’re a natural long-form writer, but to change your blog host to one that suits you better.

@johnpowell, I am totally going to take you up on that… I’ll be in touch!

Thanks for the advice everyone. :)

short entries, long entries. medium sized entries.
they are all valid. I write them at all various lengths, and depths.

They don’t have to be but many times I’ve seen authors just write freestyle with no cogent structure at all and a rambling blog loses people’s interest very quickly.