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independence2 unconnected · 1 more author in those circles
standing

contested · 6 claims against 1

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

9 claims · 6 articles · 4 receipts

window

2020-07-01 → 2022-08-03

2 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Ship the giant guide in parts

A guide big enough to matter is big enough never to ship, so number the sections and publish them as they are finished, on a fixed weekly slot, and let readers tell you which chapter to write next. Write the beginner prerequisite piece first and give it its own title, because it will outdraw the advanced series it introduces. Whether splitting helps or hurts depends on what you are splitting.

What both sides agree on

  • Pair each in-depth guide you publish with a product release fixing everything the writing exposed, since documenting something properly reveals what is wrong with it.
  • The beginner prerequisite piece will outdraw the advanced series it introduces, so write it first and give it its own title.

Where this splits

Cory Zue and Preetam Nath credit serialising a large guide with getting it published at all, while Bhanu Teja measured part two of a split tutorial at a quarter of part one's readership and calls the split a mistake.

6 claims against 1

Bhanu Teja · Cory Zue · Preetam Nath

Serialise the big guide and publish parts as finished

  1. 01Budget realistically for long-form content marketing: a single definitive guide can absorb dozens of hours and leave you too depleted to promote it.
  2. 02Watch the scope of a technical post you intend as marketing; a short article can balloon into an unfinishable guide and consume the month's marketing budget with nothing shipped.
the objection · 1 claimBhanu Teja

Do not split one tutorial, part two loses readers

Do not break one tutorial into parts, and if you do, never let unrelated posts come between them.

  1. 03Break an enormous guide into numbered parts and publish them as they are finished, because the alternative is never shipping it.
  2. 04Announce the series in public before you write it, so readers have a reason to come back for the next part.
  3. 05Instead of scattering standalone posts, serialise one guide chapter by chapter on a fixed weekly slot, so the pages accumulate into a single destination for the keyword.

What it returned

  • 25

    Zue spent over 25 hours and reached only about 75% of a first draft of his Django JavaScript guide, and had done no promotion at all by month end.

  • 3,000

    Zue's planned short post on JavaScript API clients grew into an attempt at a full Django REST guide, leaving about 3,000 words of incoherent draft after 40 logged marketing hours.

  • 10,000

    Zue made it a tradition that each installment of his JavaScript guide shipped alongside a Pegasus release incorporating what he had learned, joking that a 10,000 word article shows you how much you got wrong.

  • Zue split his Django JavaScript guide into parts after months of struggling with it as one piece, and credits the decision with getting it out at all.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

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