Display of Content in Literature Sites, etc.

[flyingpylon]

This isn't an SEO topic per se, but it seemed like the best fit.

For Chris and anyone else that is putting public domain content online, what factors influence the layout of the material? Specifically, is it better to put one whole chapter on a single page, or should each chapter be broken down into a series of pages?

Seems like one chapter per page would be easier and probably more user-friendly, but multiple pages per chapter (within reason) might enhance revenue, search engine placement, etc. and could present at least a small hurdle to others wanting to copy the text.

By the way, I'm not going to be competing with anyone else's site. The material I'm interested in fits a pretty specific niche and has not appeared online anywhere yet.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[incka]

Look at how many pages are in Chris' site. Times that by 3 if you want to do more than one page per chapter. Now think you will have to make all those pages by c&p-ing into a database. I think I've convinced you on the option you should take.

[Chris]

Yeah, what Sean said, its just easier to do it a chapter at a time -- also easier to make an index page.

[flyingpylon]

I appreciate the replies. But actually, I'm not considering putting up vast quantities of material. Right now it's just one particular book that relates to the site's primary topic (i.e. the site itself will not be a collection of many books). So the additional work would be one time only.

Is there any reason *not* to create multiple pages per chapter, other than the increased initial effort? Perhaps I'm over-analyzing, but that's nothing new!

[chrispian]

I appreciate the replies. But actually, I'm not considering putting up vast quantities of material. Right now it's just one particular book that relates to the site's primary topic (i.e. the site itself will not be a collection of many books). So the additional work would be one time only.

Is there any reason *not* to create multiple pages per chapter, other than the increased initial effort? Perhaps I'm over-analyzing, but that's nothing new!

I've seen several sites do it where each chapter is broken down into smaller chunks too. I think there are 2 advantages to doing it that way, readability and increased page views. When people see very long pages of text they might abort reading it. I personally prefer it all on one page, but I've had several requests on my sites to break up longer works into multiple pages. Literature Page (http://www.literaturepage.com) does it where each chapter is broken up and it looks like it works pretty well.