I think once your articles get to a certain length, people will read them because they're genuinely curious. It's the "uniqueness factor" - if your content is unique, it will stand out and get attention.
As for having to read them in two sittings, that's fine. It's a lot of information and I don't expect people to instantly memorize everything just from the first read. Ideally it would be used as a reference.
I'm not sure "people" in general are curious. Most of them probably aren't, they are just animals programmed to reproduce and search food. By writing only for those people who are curious enough to come more than once to your posts you are stretching it. Isn't "bringing people together" (around good quality content) the point ? Are you familiar with that Hungarian with an impossible name, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly and the concept of "flow" ? You want to get your readers into "flow" and long form is not going to achieve that.
Yes I am familiar with that guy and his book. Very boring.
Also, I’m not trying to get my readers into flow. That is up to them when they decide to sit down and work.
And no, bringing people together is not the point either. These articles will exist on here allegedly forever. When I approach potential clients and solicit them for business, I can use them as a body of work to prove that I have enough knowledge to write 4500 words about a subject that is of interest to them. Copywriting, engaging with random people on the internet, plus a bit of sales. It’s likely that not even they will read the entire list but rather just scroll down to see how long it is. I’m fine with that.
But some people will be interested enough to read the entire thing, enjoy it and want to read more stuff I’ve written. They’ll be happy to find that all of my articles are extremely long and as long as they like my style they’ll stick around because they know they can depend on me for massive amount of quality (in their opinion) content.
Once people are hooked they might read the articles in one go. I am a slow reader, because I actually read and reflect over whats written, I just don't jump from key-point to key-point, but I am guessing that is what many people do, good job on the formatting by the way...
I know when people write "addictive page-turner books" they usually try to put a small "cliffhanger" in the end of each page.
Is this something that could be applied for internet writing?
Yep, that could be applied as well. In fact that’s the essence of writing sales copy. Use the current sentence to get the reader to read the next one. Very effective for selling products.
But if you don't have to turn an actual page, do you suggest one should put it a "cliffhanger" before the next paragraph? Cheers!
/FF