As someone who worked in Silicon Valley for 40 years but found her balance every weekend back in rural America, I have long believed that the experts are narcissists and will push anything if they can get rich on it. People the world over have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the sparkle of tech. Finally, the glare is hurting their eyes.
Unfortunately you're very right about that, but I have found The majority of upper management is like that. Plague of corruption really reinforces it to the ultimate extreme which I believe is the total honest truth of how low they will go to Steel from those that have actually created new discoveries as well as blackball, and even have their workers disappear. That's just what a big Farmers little perks😢
I pray I'm never anything like that, and I know I'm not because I always really take upper management off as I won't back down, and usually would move onto a different job.
Keep helping people and just delete the ones that threaten you😬, You must be doing something correct❤️🙏❤️
I hope this trend holds. On my YouTube channel, all of my short videos get about 1000-1500 views, while my longer ones rarely achieve more than 30 views. Personally, I think the longer ones are better, but the algorithm pushes the short ones into people's feeds. To even find one of my longer ones you have to search and scroll.
Heard the same thing from someone else on YT- very concerned that he had somehow been dumped from the algorithm as his long forms weren't showing up in feeds. Upped his shorts and things seem to have righted.
I've been posting mostly short videos since those seem to get views, but it hasn't affected views on my longer videos. Meanwhile, I wonder what benefit, if any, I'm getting from views, and if it matters that my videos are being viewed.
The purpose of longer content is to be evergreen. Which means you need some proper SEO, and they sit and churn over time as opposed to something which goes viral. Takes some real skill and time to be able to churn out even occasional virality.
In short: A proper title (something relative to what people who would search would type in to look for what you are trying to get people to watch), proper use of keywords (in title and description), proper tags.
I think monetization only happens if you have a large number of followers, which I don't. I post videos in an attempt to raise awareness about my business.
Of course for them it's quite clear, which is why I wrote what I did. I'm not someone who will ever receive money from as or sponsors. I wonder what, if any, benefit additional views are gaining me. My feeling is that the answer is nothing. YouTube is putting my short videos into people's feeds, they see them, scroll past them, and never look back. I don't gain new followers, I don't gain new customers.
Consider having your shorter videos reference your longer ones. Our host here mentioned that some videos already do this. Does Youtube let you put in links?
Thank you for the article. I find no joy in short form - the tiktok thing just leaves me cold. The videos popping up on Substack are uniformly disappointing.
My preference for Substack writing is exactly as you describe - I get to experience long form work that fully explores its generative thesis - I really enjoy authors who take the time to explore and develop the full panoply of their ideas.
Your relating the success of longer books is encouraging. I'm eagerly looking forward to the release of Pynchon's latest later this summer. I hope its a corker of a novel that weighs in "portly". What a feast to be savored!
I think this is what book publishers have missed in their headlong rush toward mediocrity. My current novel was turned down by 30 agents and 20 publishers before I realized I actually didn't want to give it to them. I kept getting inane comments like, "People don't read 100,000-word books (350-400 pages). Make it shorter."
The reality is, novels that hit home runs are the ones that engage readers deeply, leave them with something permanent, and help them become who they want to be. Anything else is entertainment.
Of course, this puts a huge burden on authors, who have to say something good, different, and compelling. It makes the work of publishing more like a labor of love and less like a factory operation.
Some of those agents are out of touch. There were a number of authors cranking out massive novels in the 1980s like Follett and Clavell. One reviewer joked that they were so long that you could just lie on the beach and read all summer and not need to fish out a new novel.
And before that, Michener, and (not an endorsement!) Margaret Mitchell. Also Charles Dickens. (While I realize that his novels were published in serial form, the amount of padding in, say, Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit is completely OTT.)
As far as I can tell (from bookstore work some years ago), people love doorstopper novels, whether trash or treasure. A lot of shlocky writing - Valley of the Dolls, most everything Harold Robbins published = huge books. Stephen King has pushed the limits per doorstopers throughout his career. Once Herman Wouk decided to tackle WWII in its entirety, he ran well over 1k pages in each book (The Winds of War, War and Remembrance).
I was thinking of Michener. Judith Krantz was no slacker nor was Harold Robbins. It's a credit to Barbara Cartland that she went short form but made up for it with sheer volume.
I was told by an English teacher that Dickens was paid by the word and that Hugo and Dumas maintained a studio of writers each to crank out particular chapters. It was almost industrial.
My girlfriend and I discussed GWTW. We decided that Gone With the Wind was racist trash, but it was also the Great American Novel. We also agreed that this shouldn't surprise anyone.
I agree completely re. GWTW, although I've never read it and never gotten through the film, due to its being, like the book, extremely racist. Yet it has more staying power than just about any other book by an American author that I can think of.
About Dickens being paid by the word: that sounds right. The way his books were serialized seems very similar to how daytime soaps work. I mean, there's this chapter in Nicholas Nickleby where a traveler tells a story about some stained glass windows. It has nothing to do with the novel itself; it's all filler. I wish Dickens had made some judicious cuts for final publication, but that would likely have had fans in an uproar.
I can understand not being to get through GWTW. It's pretty rugged for all the fiddle-dee-dees and hoop skirts.
*** SPOILER *** Scarlett was literally willing to do anything - murder, prostitution, torture - to get back her imagined pre-war life, her fantasy life of the South. Her illusions get stripped raw though she learns nothing, and, eventually, even Rhett who seems her soulmate leaves her. It ends with Scarlett unchanged and looking forward. It's a horrifying psychological portrait. It's also an all too accurate political metaphor. *** SPOILER ***
Sometimes the attitudes of the era just overpower one's enjoyment of the story. Merchant of Venice is still a good play despite its anti-semitism. Sometimes one even gets a good laugh. The version of 39 Steps I read had an apology for some Jewish villain - he was an Asiatic Jew, not a proper European Jew. The book was written in 1915, so I wonder if this was added in a later edition.
I can't imagine an edit that would lighten the racism in GWTW. To be fair to Scarlet though, she had no qualms about torturing white convicts. She was an equal opportunity monster.
As to GWTW (the film), it's the way both Butterfly McQueen and Hattie McDaniel were treated, the roles they had to assume, that get to me. I just can't stand to watch that, and I have no interest in the main characters. They're horrible people.
As for edits, i didn't mean to suggest that re. GWTW, though. Just Dickens. Apologies for any confusion.
And yes on The Merchant of Venice being a good play, though the antisemitism is really hard to take. Not sure i could watch it live, no matter how well-acted.
As for The 39 Steps, I'm certain John Buchan had that in the 1st printing of the novel. So many British writers were, at that point in time, until WWII at very least. Dorothy Sayers, for example. Even writers of nonfiction.
All agreed and grateful for your take. Regarding artists' work getting longer (such as Taylor Swift's songs) I wonder whether it isn't compensatory to the insanely loud culture we live in -- as though artists feel the need to say more to overcome all the "noise, noise, noise."
How long did Careful With That Axe, Eugene run? How long does it take to listen to a symphony? Swift isn't the first musician to experiment with long form.
The viral enthusiasm for "Middlemarch" this past Spring among NY professionals is another example (albeit anecdotal). I know attendance figures were flat this year - but I keep seeing younger audiences at the Met Opera and at Film Forum. There's a clear hunger for longer, more complicated works that feel "real" as opposed to the slop
You're right about the Middlemarch phenomenon. Against all odds, a 800-page book from 1872 becomes trendy. I've noticed this myself. I should have mentioned it in this article.
Food for thought, immensely useful, thanks so much. I also wanted to note that it's rare to see a good Bleak House reference! And mixing that in as a way to invisbly bolster your point about long-form is a pro move.
Great, but I am annoyed by the latest trend in political commentary videos. People take 15-20 minutes to make a point that could be adequately made in 3-5 minutes. I almost never listen to the end.
You are right...BUT. As a person who spends time creating collaborative environments where people engage and co-create within organizations and communities I think what you are saying applies to activities which are about the individual consumption of cultural products. The desire to curl up with a book for a day indicates to me that people want immersive individual experiences. But experiences of creating community together are becoming harder and harder. Clients who regularly asked for three day long retreats now wonder if we can do the same amount of work in only 1 and a half. "Everyone is so busy" goes the line. But everyone is not busy. Everyone is retreating into individual immersive experiences. Even Taylor Swift shows, despite the fact that a fantastic community vibe emerges from her art and her fandom, is still a consummation experience. This isn't quite the whole story Ted. Co-creative community activities are fading away. The people who figure out algorithms like this becasue it means the can spoon feed civic content without people getting to together to do something about it. The trends in consuming arts may be changing, but the trend in collaborative community is still fading away.
What you do sounds interesting. Is it anything like what Marvin Weisbord wrote about in "Common Ground?" Collective problem solving is an interesting topic for research.
There just was a big murder trial in Boston and a couple members of the jury actually went on TV to talk about it, very unusual. How do actual people actually approach a collective problem? Can they solve it better than individual experts, or do they just tend to sand off the edges of disagreements?
One of my teens regularly watches tiktok, but she's also reading The Iliad because she likes big, meaty books that she can dive into for a few weeks. The kids are okay.
Brilliant work, Ted. I am so happy when my intuition/optimism is backed with data- I’m so glad you also have the capacity for both optimism and data analysis. I love your articles. Thank you for your hard work. 10/10, five stars, high five 😊
As someone who worked in Silicon Valley for 40 years but found her balance every weekend back in rural America, I have long believed that the experts are narcissists and will push anything if they can get rich on it. People the world over have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the sparkle of tech. Finally, the glare is hurting their eyes.
The love of money...
Unfortunately you're very right about that, but I have found The majority of upper management is like that. Plague of corruption really reinforces it to the ultimate extreme which I believe is the total honest truth of how low they will go to Steel from those that have actually created new discoveries as well as blackball, and even have their workers disappear. That's just what a big Farmers little perks😢
I pray I'm never anything like that, and I know I'm not because I always really take upper management off as I won't back down, and usually would move onto a different job.
Keep helping people and just delete the ones that threaten you😬, You must be doing something correct❤️🙏❤️
Let’s drink to GREED!
I’m old enough to remember Dave Rhodes and MAKE.MONEY.FAST on the Internet.
Nothing has changed besides the scope of the graft and the abandonment of Wall Street to grift instead on Sand Hill Road.
I hope this trend holds. On my YouTube channel, all of my short videos get about 1000-1500 views, while my longer ones rarely achieve more than 30 views. Personally, I think the longer ones are better, but the algorithm pushes the short ones into people's feeds. To even find one of my longer ones you have to search and scroll.
Heard the same thing from someone else on YT- very concerned that he had somehow been dumped from the algorithm as his long forms weren't showing up in feeds. Upped his shorts and things seem to have righted.
I've been posting mostly short videos since those seem to get views, but it hasn't affected views on my longer videos. Meanwhile, I wonder what benefit, if any, I'm getting from views, and if it matters that my videos are being viewed.
The purpose of longer content is to be evergreen. Which means you need some proper SEO, and they sit and churn over time as opposed to something which goes viral. Takes some real skill and time to be able to churn out even occasional virality.
What constitutes proper SEO for a YouTube video?
In short: A proper title (something relative to what people who would search would type in to look for what you are trying to get people to watch), proper use of keywords (in title and description), proper tags.
In your opinion, how well, or badly, is the SEO on this?
https://youtu.be/4xybi_VWquY
I don't post on YT, so I can only guess that it's a part of monetization, eg. a minimum of x views before the video generates revenue.
I think monetization only happens if you have a large number of followers, which I don't. I post videos in an attempt to raise awareness about my business.
>Meanwhile, I wonder what benefit, if any, I'm getting from views, and if it matters that my videos are being viewed.
Well, for creators depending on YouTube ad money (or sponsors for their videos) that answer is quite clear, no?
Of course for them it's quite clear, which is why I wrote what I did. I'm not someone who will ever receive money from as or sponsors. I wonder what, if any, benefit additional views are gaining me. My feeling is that the answer is nothing. YouTube is putting my short videos into people's feeds, they see them, scroll past them, and never look back. I don't gain new followers, I don't gain new customers.
Consider having your shorter videos reference your longer ones. Our host here mentioned that some videos already do this. Does Youtube let you put in links?
Thank you for the article. I find no joy in short form - the tiktok thing just leaves me cold. The videos popping up on Substack are uniformly disappointing.
My preference for Substack writing is exactly as you describe - I get to experience long form work that fully explores its generative thesis - I really enjoy authors who take the time to explore and develop the full panoply of their ideas.
Your relating the success of longer books is encouraging. I'm eagerly looking forward to the release of Pynchon's latest later this summer. I hope its a corker of a novel that weighs in "portly". What a feast to be savored!
I’ll add that the comments on Substack, the longer ones, tend to complement the long-form content. Curse me for using that word!
If that's a cheeky check to my pedantry - well played Sir! ;)
I suspect we are Brothers in Pedantry! I hardly ever pay any attention to videos. They annoy me intensely.
I think this is what book publishers have missed in their headlong rush toward mediocrity. My current novel was turned down by 30 agents and 20 publishers before I realized I actually didn't want to give it to them. I kept getting inane comments like, "People don't read 100,000-word books (350-400 pages). Make it shorter."
The reality is, novels that hit home runs are the ones that engage readers deeply, leave them with something permanent, and help them become who they want to be. Anything else is entertainment.
Of course, this puts a huge burden on authors, who have to say something good, different, and compelling. It makes the work of publishing more like a labor of love and less like a factory operation.
Some of those agents are out of touch. There were a number of authors cranking out massive novels in the 1980s like Follett and Clavell. One reviewer joked that they were so long that you could just lie on the beach and read all summer and not need to fish out a new novel.
And before that, Michener, and (not an endorsement!) Margaret Mitchell. Also Charles Dickens. (While I realize that his novels were published in serial form, the amount of padding in, say, Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit is completely OTT.)
As far as I can tell (from bookstore work some years ago), people love doorstopper novels, whether trash or treasure. A lot of shlocky writing - Valley of the Dolls, most everything Harold Robbins published = huge books. Stephen King has pushed the limits per doorstopers throughout his career. Once Herman Wouk decided to tackle WWII in its entirety, he ran well over 1k pages in each book (The Winds of War, War and Remembrance).
I was thinking of Michener. Judith Krantz was no slacker nor was Harold Robbins. It's a credit to Barbara Cartland that she went short form but made up for it with sheer volume.
I was told by an English teacher that Dickens was paid by the word and that Hugo and Dumas maintained a studio of writers each to crank out particular chapters. It was almost industrial.
My girlfriend and I discussed GWTW. We decided that Gone With the Wind was racist trash, but it was also the Great American Novel. We also agreed that this shouldn't surprise anyone.
I agree completely re. GWTW, although I've never read it and never gotten through the film, due to its being, like the book, extremely racist. Yet it has more staying power than just about any other book by an American author that I can think of.
About Dickens being paid by the word: that sounds right. The way his books were serialized seems very similar to how daytime soaps work. I mean, there's this chapter in Nicholas Nickleby where a traveler tells a story about some stained glass windows. It has nothing to do with the novel itself; it's all filler. I wish Dickens had made some judicious cuts for final publication, but that would likely have had fans in an uproar.
I can understand not being to get through GWTW. It's pretty rugged for all the fiddle-dee-dees and hoop skirts.
*** SPOILER *** Scarlett was literally willing to do anything - murder, prostitution, torture - to get back her imagined pre-war life, her fantasy life of the South. Her illusions get stripped raw though she learns nothing, and, eventually, even Rhett who seems her soulmate leaves her. It ends with Scarlett unchanged and looking forward. It's a horrifying psychological portrait. It's also an all too accurate political metaphor. *** SPOILER ***
Sometimes the attitudes of the era just overpower one's enjoyment of the story. Merchant of Venice is still a good play despite its anti-semitism. Sometimes one even gets a good laugh. The version of 39 Steps I read had an apology for some Jewish villain - he was an Asiatic Jew, not a proper European Jew. The book was written in 1915, so I wonder if this was added in a later edition.
I can't imagine an edit that would lighten the racism in GWTW. To be fair to Scarlet though, she had no qualms about torturing white convicts. She was an equal opportunity monster.
As to GWTW (the film), it's the way both Butterfly McQueen and Hattie McDaniel were treated, the roles they had to assume, that get to me. I just can't stand to watch that, and I have no interest in the main characters. They're horrible people.
As for edits, i didn't mean to suggest that re. GWTW, though. Just Dickens. Apologies for any confusion.
And yes on The Merchant of Venice being a good play, though the antisemitism is really hard to take. Not sure i could watch it live, no matter how well-acted.
As for The 39 Steps, I'm certain John Buchan had that in the 1st printing of the novel. So many British writers were, at that point in time, until WWII at very least. Dorothy Sayers, for example. Even writers of nonfiction.
Maybe the relationship looks something like:
Short videos = shallow fans
Long videos = deep fans
Earning fans who are willing to commit to a lot of time to you is worth it. You just have to make their time spent worth their while.
Equally, creating longer form is evidence of the creator’s commitment of time to the audience.
All agreed and grateful for your take. Regarding artists' work getting longer (such as Taylor Swift's songs) I wonder whether it isn't compensatory to the insanely loud culture we live in -- as though artists feel the need to say more to overcome all the "noise, noise, noise."
How long did Careful With That Axe, Eugene run? How long does it take to listen to a symphony? Swift isn't the first musician to experiment with long form.
First hopeful signs of life emerging after the forest fire consumed everything
Oh dont worry, theyll add "the rub" when a critical mass is met.
The viral enthusiasm for "Middlemarch" this past Spring among NY professionals is another example (albeit anecdotal). I know attendance figures were flat this year - but I keep seeing younger audiences at the Met Opera and at Film Forum. There's a clear hunger for longer, more complicated works that feel "real" as opposed to the slop
You're right about the Middlemarch phenomenon. Against all odds, a 800-page book from 1872 becomes trendy. I've noticed this myself. I should have mentioned it in this article.
My recollection is that this also happened back in the mid-late 1980s. Every now and then I find myself ahead of a trend, and this was one of them.
There was endurance theater with the Mahabharata and NIcholas Nickleby back in the 70s and 80s.
You'd think binge watching whole seasons of television would provide a clue that people like long form.
Good point.
Food for thought, immensely useful, thanks so much. I also wanted to note that it's rare to see a good Bleak House reference! And mixing that in as a way to invisbly bolster your point about long-form is a pro move.
Im ready for a Dance to the Music of Time group read!
Just missed one! The neglected books channel on youtube just got thru v.5
Great, but I am annoyed by the latest trend in political commentary videos. People take 15-20 minutes to make a point that could be adequately made in 3-5 minutes. I almost never listen to the end.
for me that describes most pod casts and it seems to be leaking over into broadcast media too.
Awesome! As Palantir substitutes reality, humans plant gardens that sustain.
You are right...BUT. As a person who spends time creating collaborative environments where people engage and co-create within organizations and communities I think what you are saying applies to activities which are about the individual consumption of cultural products. The desire to curl up with a book for a day indicates to me that people want immersive individual experiences. But experiences of creating community together are becoming harder and harder. Clients who regularly asked for three day long retreats now wonder if we can do the same amount of work in only 1 and a half. "Everyone is so busy" goes the line. But everyone is not busy. Everyone is retreating into individual immersive experiences. Even Taylor Swift shows, despite the fact that a fantastic community vibe emerges from her art and her fandom, is still a consummation experience. This isn't quite the whole story Ted. Co-creative community activities are fading away. The people who figure out algorithms like this becasue it means the can spoon feed civic content without people getting to together to do something about it. The trends in consuming arts may be changing, but the trend in collaborative community is still fading away.
What you do sounds interesting. Is it anything like what Marvin Weisbord wrote about in "Common Ground?" Collective problem solving is an interesting topic for research.
There just was a big murder trial in Boston and a couple members of the jury actually went on TV to talk about it, very unusual. How do actual people actually approach a collective problem? Can they solve it better than individual experts, or do they just tend to sand off the edges of disagreements?
One of my teens regularly watches tiktok, but she's also reading The Iliad because she likes big, meaty books that she can dive into for a few weeks. The kids are okay.
Thank you for this. As someone who has despised short form content since it appeared, this is a welcomed reversal.
Brilliant work, Ted. I am so happy when my intuition/optimism is backed with data- I’m so glad you also have the capacity for both optimism and data analysis. I love your articles. Thank you for your hard work. 10/10, five stars, high five 😊