People Don't Read
As a professional technical writer for nearly 20 years, I should have this tattooed on my bones, but for some reason it always comes as a complete shock to me. Over the last week or so I’ve been combatting what, in retrospect, was a really stupid move on my part. As you may know, I write about web design and HTML for About.com. And About.com is in the midst of a lengthy birthing process of a redesign. Part of that was the (much appreciated by me) removal of the blogs. They weren’t removing our articles, weren’t stopping me from writing, weren’t even changing how the home page looked all that significantly. (Depending upon who you ask.) But, since I find all things web development interesting, I wrote about it in my newsletter of last week. I mentioned that the blog was going away, but that I was still going to be writing for About.com, just not in a blog tool. This resulted in a minor flood of responses asking me where I was going and if my articles would still be visible on the site and were the URLs changing (and one charming character telling me to f-off and take my dime-store web design skills somewhere else, and a bunch more about my lack of education and total idiocy in as profane a tone as he could come up with.) and so on. So this week, I decided to stem the tide, answer the common questions and generally reassure the people who like me that I wasn’t going anywhere. I wrote my newsletter with the subject: “I am not leaving About.com and other questions answered.” Do you see the problem? Mark pointed out that I should have written “I am staying at About.com and other questions answered.” But the part of me that is very literal balked at that subject, as it seems to imply that at one point I was leaving, and then changed my mind. Because, you see, the problem is that people don’t read. I know there have been studies showing that people are reading more than they used to—after all, teh interwebz requires more reading than TV does. [caption id=“attachment_831” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”]
This is how I read most of the time[/caption] And what’s really silly about this fact is that I’ve known it a long time. As far back as 1997, I was telling my readers “people don’t read websites, they skim them.” But the fact is that this applies to almost any type of reading, especially reading online.
I Love My Readers
I got so many kind letters after I sent my non-resignation letter. People told me they’d been reading my site for years, that they saved every newsletter or article. They wanted to know where I was going from here, and how I was going to make ends meet. they wished me well and asked to be added to my new newsletter. And most of these emails came with a subject: “Re: I am not leaving About.com and other questions answered.” I felt almost guilty responding to them letting them know that I was staying on at About.com. I felt uncomfortable pointing out their non-reading habits. After all, they had just told me how valuable those articles they didn’t read were to them. Would my pointing out that they had mis-read what I wrote annoy them and make them want to stop not-reading my articles? Luckily, most were pleased to get a response from me and several expressed being overjoyed that I decided to stay at About.com. So I guess my writing does help them. So, I’ll continue to write stuff for people to not read well into the future. Maybe I’ll start posting my fiction. No. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That can continue to be not read, or not not read. And if you got this far and are now confused, well, rest assured you’re the only one who read this far. So kudos to you, you should apply for my job at About.com, since I’m not leaving. [caption id=“attachment_832” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”]
I love to read[/caption]