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Three Minutes Equates to the Success You Want
Have you found the sweet spot of article length?
Who is your target audience? If you write fiction, you can write a nine-minute read, and your readers will stay with you. If you are a programmer, you can write a six-minute read, and the techies will hang on to every word.
If your audience is other writers, you’ve got three minutes. That’s five hundred words. Writers are in a mad rush to publish. They know they should read a few other articles besides their own, but they do it grudgingly.
If they click on one of my articles and I don’t hook them in the first minute, they’re gone. From my experience, every minute above three, adds an increased risk of a lost reader mid-stream.
You’ve got three minutes.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fair-weather reader myself. I read a travel article yesterday that was nine minutes long, and it probably took me 15 minutes to read. It had amazing photos and stories about food and Anthony Bourdain. I loved it.
But I’m not writing about travel. I’m writing to inspire writers, and writers cherish their time. There are exceptions, but not many.
I’m still learning this game. I’ve never had an article distributed in topics yet, but I’m not…
