For Aron: Blog Format

Aron asked: When I posted my essays on space from school, they preformed well and I felt I made a significant impact. I'm considering switching my blog to an essay format, but that is time intensive. What are your thoughts?

One of the rules I, personally, live by is to write what I like to read, write what I want in the way I want it.

When it comes to fiction, I have to worry somewhat what others think, but only insofar as it's in keeping with my own vision. If I have to sacrifice my vision, better to be unpublished. With the blog, I don't even bother that much. Instead, I'm focused on what I want to say, how I want to say it and let the chips fall as they will. I have no ads, make no money (nor pay any) for my blogs.

I consider it a forum to write as I will.

To answer your question, you need to ask yourself questions. How you answer them determines what you'd best do.

If your blog is an opportunity to state your case, your views, your dreams and hope they're contagious, do what works best for you, not working any harder than need be to accomplish that goal. If, however, you're most interested in reaching people, influencing them, shaping policy, than a more aggressive or reader-friendly format might work.

The thing is, if you're into reaching people, I'm not sure what the most effective format is. Some say keep it short and sweet, that those posts tend to be the most popular. Humor, of course, is often effective. Unfortunately, I have no data to back up that notion. Easily my most popular post of all time (>10K hits) was a long bit about the metric system.

Of you're looking for advice for increased readership, I'm a poor one to advise you. I would say, however, to stick with a format you're comfortable with, one that isn't so taxing you are discouraged from posting, but also one that you feel reaches people.

Because I can't see how to reach people if you're not feeling it.

Just my opinion. Hope it helps.