Writing Tips: How Many Words?

So many people say they can’t write. What does that really mean? If you started a discussion, they would probably talk comfortably for 20 minutes, some more than an hour (stop laughing now).

Everyone is different.  Some people like to read, others would rather watch a movie and still others might enjoy good music while jogging or riding a bike. Customers are like this too. Some want to download and read a research paper, while others prefer video or they’ll scan a web page for the key points.

As business owners, each of us needs to learn what our customers prefer and we need to explore different ways we can provide this information to them. Here at the Association of Home Professionals we share tips on ways to communicate more effectively.

How Many Words to Tell Your Story?

We don’t expect every member to write a book but we do want to help you tell your story. There are lots of choices so keep exploring and you’re sure to find one or more that will work for you.

• Blog posts range from something as short as 1 to 2 sentences, to a few (3 to 5) paragraphs.
• Articles are longer (print shorter due to cost) and most often run from 400 to 1,000 words.
• Reports, i.e. the numerous “Free Reports” on the web, range from as few as 3 pages to more than 20 pages but look carefully at the width of their margins and line spacing.
• Books typically start at 20 pages for an eBook, while print books start at 150 pages.

Regardless of the length of your writing, there are numerous techniques to make your content more readable. In fact one of these tips prompted me to write this post. From www.pharmout.com, I learned that it is best “… to constrain line length in a report to 9-12 words (oops, not doing this here). This is the optimal length that the human eye can track, without wandering off. ” They recommend using wide margins and an 11 pt font size to achieve this objective for their scientific reports which can get lengthy. They also mentioned making the the inter-line space wider than normal to help the eye identify lines of text and read across them easily.