HTMLGIANT

January 1st, 2010 / 8:51 pm Mike Meginnis—

It depends on what “your work” is. Flash and stuff under 2k words, sure. Poems definitely. More than that you can’t probably place outside a few venues, and supposedly that stuff isn’t read, though I’m not sure.

January 1st, 2010 / 9:23 pm Lincoln—

I’ll argue it depends on where you are publishing in print and online?

January 1st, 2010 / 9:37 pm Merzmensch—

Well, imho it depends on writer, whether he/she is more literary active off- or online. (Or better said: if I am not printed/published, I’m looking for virtual ways to my readers, so if I’ve found this way, I perhaps will keep it [not really pragmatic modus cogendi, though]).

But online as text medium should be re-thought one more time. Even if I perhaps take the word “print” to literally, but I’m always printing out (with office printer) literary works I find in online magazines. I know, the Mother Earth won’t forgive me, but the texts can be better read on paper, even of they are coming from my printer.

January 1st, 2010 / 9:57 pm Sean—

I agree with above, but I also notice a huge % of feedback with online publishing versus print. Like opportunities and conversations and pop that print wasn’t doing.

BUT, having thought this out, maybe the feedback is because those that reads online lit are obviously very comfortable using online communication, etc. I mean it is easier to contact someone online.

Also, and I think Roxanne brought this up elsewhere maybe, “online” is still a small percentage of the world. Then again, how many of those same offline people have access to lit mags in print?

One thing I have been doing at BSU is increasing the print lit mags in the library. My plan is to add 10 titles a year, so that type of thing can maybe increase the print readership.

I also think of my own reading. I read a lot of online and a lot of print mags. But I do actually contact the online people more and comment on their writing.

January 1st, 2010 / 10:18 pm Ken Baumann—

Will it be read less attentively, though?

January 1st, 2010 / 10:34 pm Merzmensch—

Even if I’m not at the Ball State University, I want to thank you for this great idea with lit mags in BSU library. I know the problem of the literarian unattainability in German university libraries, since the managers of many German university libraries tend to decrease the amount of literarian magazines till the level of “necessity”, instead of increasing it and opening modern literary world to the students (even if these textes are not immediately the subject matter of lectures)…

They call it “austerity measures”, but if I see the quantity of economic magazines available in our library, I’m asking myself, whether there are another intentions behind discontinuance of literary magazines in German university libraries.

January 1st, 2010 / 10:53 pm david erlewine—

I would like to note that Roxane has one n. She has taken several to task. You do not want a war with that htmlgiant poster. It will make the nachos thing look silly.

January 1st, 2010 / 11:28 pm BAC—

probably depends on the writing.

January 1st, 2010 / 11:31 pm Sean—

ha,

sorry roxane with one n.

there you go

January 1st, 2010 / 11:55 pm Kyle Minor—

The one thing that online won’t do for you is get you a decent read by the editors of the major anthologies, such as the Best American and O. Henry series, and that’s really where a lot of writers begin to find their audience and make their reputation.

January 1st, 2010 / 11:59 pm Sean—

I agree, Kyle, but don’t you feel that is changing and will change? I mean I think that problem is with Best Am and O henry.

Newspapers used to cough at bloggers. Now they employ bloggers.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:00 am Kyle Minor—

I know that this comment will ignite a shitstorm of value judgments about those major anthologies, and about the larger question of whether or not a writer ought to want a broad readership. I do, and when I have something that might find itself in contention for such a thing, I send it to a print journal that frequently finds its way into those anthologies. It has only worked once, but that once made it worth it, certainly.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:04 am Kyle Minor—

I think maybe you’re right, but it hasn’t happened yet. The most prominent near-equivalents are the Dzanc web anthology (which is a print anthology, by the way), and the Million Writers Award, which is a very cool thing, but which doesn’t have anything like the cachet of O.H. and BASS. If convergence between print and digital is what we’re headed toward, my guess is that sooner or later all the venerable print journals will have online equivalents (perhaps by subscription on digital readers), and that BASS and O. Henry will continue in dual formats as books and ebooks, and retain their cachet as the premier anthologies. Can’t say for sure, but it seems likely to me, unless somebody with money and the respect of other writers decides to pony up big bucks to create something that can compete with the historical prestige of those older anthologies.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:05 am Lincoln—

Newspapers used to write news, now they just blog opinions and call it news.

(this disgruntled post has nothing to do with lit mags though)

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:09 am Sam Ligon—

Sean, you’ve probably already seen this, but here are some comments on online
publishing vs. print by Rick Rofihe and Rick Moody: http://www.americanshortfiction.org/blog/?p=2220

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:12 am Sean—

I don’t know about a shitstorm, but I am not buying what you are saying.

Are you arguing publishing online cannot lead to a book and a “broad readership”?

(or maybe a movie deal–can Shane Jones chime in?)

I’ll be interested to see comments on this point.

I like how you own your career goals of publishing in a few magazines that make these lists, a strategic approach and that is fine, but I think things are changing.

There are other ways, and plates of the earth are shifting, I feel.

Lots of online writers are maturing into quite the broad readership, this we know.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:30 am Mike Meginnis—

I can’t speak for people in general, but I do have trouble reading attentively online. Of course a lot of the problem is simply bad design — the main thing that keeps me from submitting more online is that I only want to be in magazines that have been designed carefully for reading. Of course actually a lot of print mags look like ass too, which seems to be noticed less often. A lot of tiny, single-spaced text. I can’t deal with that.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the story is good enough, as BAC suggests. Read Brian Evenson’s story online in the latest Unsaid, had my mind blown, online wasn’t an issue.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:51 am Justin Taylor—

Kyle’s point is that phrasing this as “print v online” leaves out a whole host of other considerations that matter as much as if not more–from the writer’s perspective. If you are shooting for Best American Short Stories, you’ll want to get yourself in a journal or magazine that participates in that has a decent track record with that anthology. This brings up another point which I think is important- that the practical value of being published in a given magazine/journal/website lies not just in its perceived “prestige” (PANK trumps MonkeyBicycle or Esquire fights The Atlantic to a draw) but in who that magazine’s audience is. If you are in The Agriculture Reader, for example, you will be read by approximately 500 people at the most. That’s less people than visit this website in a day. The question, though, is who those people are, the way they relate to the magazine, the way that relationship translates into attention paid to your work, and so on from there.

I will say, however, to Kyle, that I think those Major Anthos are savvier than they get credit for. Their taste may be relatively middle-of-the-road (though each guest-editor of course has their own peculiar taste; Best American Poetry, I think, is especially good on this tip) but in any case I don’t think that they’re lazy. I was very pleased to find myself long-listed on Best American Essays one year, for a fairly weird piece called “Fort Smith, Arkansas” that was published in the second issue of Barrelhouse. As glad as I was for the notice, it was almost more interesting to me that they knew about BH at all. The Best American Non-Required folks are especially wide-ranging and thorough in their searches. In the end, I still say the best policy is to try and “be” in the “places” where you want to be–where it feels right for you to be, and trust that this rightness will be matched in its turn by the world’s.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:56 am Ben White—

Sean is right. Obviously, Dan Brown gets more readers than your average blog. But overall, more reading clearly happens online than it does on paper now. We can argue about the quality of the reading (or the writing), but the eyeballs are there.

I’d wager more people read @shitmydadsays on Twitter than read all print lit mags put together. Food for thought.

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:10 am Kyle Minor—

Well said, Justin. And, Sean, I don’t really disagree all that much with anything you’re saying.

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:12 am Justin Taylor—

Yeah but if I wanted the kind of attention that people pay to @shitmydadsays, I’d be working in a different artistic discipline—or just writing ad copy. That’s not a knock on @shit…, or on the people who read it. It’s an assessment of the kind of reading that that kind of format invites– immediate and transient, casual and disposable, and basically all-surface. You chuckle then you move on. And that’s totally okay; it’s the appropriate way to read and consume that particular product in that particular form. The problem is when those kinds of form/medium-imposed reading habits transfer to other kinds of work that require other kinds of responses. I don’t want my fiction read with the same readerly attitude one would bring to @shitmydadsays. And that’s not to say that it’s impossible to read deeply or with engagement online (if I thought that, I wouldn’t pour my heart into 2k word essays for this site) only to say that it takes an extra step to remind oneself to change readerly gears, be aware of the habituated response and subvert it, etc.

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:15 am Ryan Call—

sean how are you adding print magazines to the library? do you have to request them and then the staff decideds? or is it easier than that?

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:19 am Kyle Minor—

And, also, I publish in online journals, too, and value them. I just don’t think they yet have the cachet that the major print journals do, except in certain pockets of readers, some of which are very well represented at HTMLGiant, which certainly influences the trajectory of this conversation. But even among these pockets of readers, would you rather say you’d published a story in the print edition of Conjunctions or, say, Elimae or Wag’s Revue or Lamination Colony or The Collagist? I think that there’s a certain credibility that attaches to Conjunctions which hasn’t yet been attained by any web journals, and that the same piece, published in either Conjunctions or whatever we’d consider the most prestigious web outlet, would be much more likely to find its way into a major anthology via Conjunctions.

The question of finding one’s way into books is a different one. I’d think 52 Stories would be a great place to publish if you wanted a NY book deal, since it’s edited by the good people at HarperCollins, right?

Also, I think the buzz that attaches to exciting writing transcends most of this. Whether Blake Butler publishes his books with Featherproof or HarperPerennial, and whether his work appears in Conjunctions or Elimae, word of mouth will provide him with an enthusiastic audience. As it happens, his work appears in all of these places, because he has work ethic enough to have enough good stuff to go around, and because more and more, everyone who’s paying attention wants some of it.

So I’m not making any kind of all-in statements. I’m just saying (as Justin said), that from the writer’s perspective, there are competing considerations that impact where one wants to send individual pieces of writing, and the question of the number of eyeballs that immediately see a piece may not be the only one worth considering, even if the ultimate concern is that the most eyeballs ultimately see the piece.

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:24 am darby—

the vast majority of what i read are novels in print. i think that is still what most people read, right? like most readers i dont think are ‘literary’ or know what a literary magazine is, they enjoy clive cussler novels and the twilights. thats the world i see in the america i live in.

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:37 am Lincoln—

I’m pretty sure the New Yorker has a larger circulation than shit my dad says has followers, but if your goal is merely to get the most eyes possible on whatever you are writing, then you should probably be going into gossip tabloid journalism or ad copy instead of literature.

January 2nd, 2010 / 1:50 am Lincoln—

Piggybacking on some of what Kyle and Justin said above, one thing I always wonder about in these debates over which gets more reads is who exactly is reading the work. My assumption is that much of the reason online work gets more reads is because your friends and family read the work. If a writer gets published online, they tend to link it on facebook/twitter/their blog and it is an easy thing to click over and give your friend’s story a read. What would be the difference in eyeballs if you were published in both the print and online version of a magazine, but didn’t advertise this fact?

I’m not sure. And I am certainly not saying that having people you know read your work is any better or worse than having strangers read your work, but it seems like something to keep in mind.

Also, while I know there are many here who will argue to the death against me on this point, I really don’t believe that online standards have caught up with the standards of print, at least if you are looking at the “best” journals. This is not to say that I don’t read or submit to online journals. There are some great ones and some that are edited as carefully as anything in print (elimae is an obvious example). And at Gigantic we put as much editorial work into our online as our print.

But I really don’t look at the online landscape and see the equivalents to Tin House, Noon, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Harper’s, The Believer, 9th Letter, Open City, and so on. There is a reason the print mags still dominate the anthologies and it isn’t merely old fuddy-duddy thinking from the editors.

January 2nd, 2010 / 2:43 am Blake Butler—

what does being in BASS or O’Henry REALLY do for you, though? how much implicit value is in there, other than being able to stick in on some list of language tags?

January 2nd, 2010 / 2:52 am Sean—

Man, I feel I need to wade into about 20 points here, my blood humming a bit over some of these comments…maybe will approach each later.

I will follow Blake’s point and Lincoln’s and etc.

Ryan, you would be surprised. Getting lit mags into U libraries is actually easy, because they (lit mags) are incredibly cheap, in academia standards. I asked for 10 mags (Tin House to Pleiades to Pinch, etc) and it costs about $300 per year.

Do you realize how the U library laughed?

ONE biology mag costs about the same.

I was naive and I am learning not to be naive. I might aim for 20 new mags per year next time.

I am just going to make it my role to make BSU a bad-ass depository of lit mags, in print.

Most universities I have worked at (several) do not.

It’s pretty easy, actually. The library (at least BSUs) listens to what profs want.

In English, we have a liaison. I gave him my order and my rationale, my argument for why these mags matter to profs and students and the world. He got it done. But it was cheap for the library, considering other discipline’s wants.

hope that helps, Ryan.

If u are trying to do the same, Ryan, and need more, email me.

January 2nd, 2010 / 2:53 am Sean—

Thanks for the link, Sam. Will read ASAP. And think on it.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:00 am Sean—

OK, now I just read Moody/Rick link, and I wish they had said something! Too short. I’d like to see both seriously address the topic.

I don’t think online publishing is going anywhere but in your ass, up the intestine, nasal cavities, to your brain. I hope that sounds purposely harsh.

2010?

Maybe, seduced by…the way it even looks. But still, how I feel.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:07 am Lincoln—

Well, sticking with the thread statement, it probably gets you some more readers.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:13 am Roxane Gay—

Oh David, I am so very fond of you.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:14 am Roxane Gay—

Adding literary magazines in the library is such a great idea. I also think more creative writing teachers should require their students to subscribe to a lit mag or two as part of their required texts.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:15 am Roxane Gay—

I really think attentiveness is more about the quality of the writing than the manner in which that writing is delivered to the reader.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:18 am Lincoln—

I’m not totally sure about that. The internet is a place of little attention. Most of us have a half dozen tabs open at any time and flip between them constantly. In fact, I’ll probably go check for the recap of the knicks game before even finishing this post. Damn! Nate Rob is back with a vengeance!

I have to imagine when reading a short story online the same thing is going on. Your reading of the story is interrupted by g-chat messages, new emails, random web surfing, etc.

This is a large part of the reason why the web is good for flash fiction and short poetry, imho.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:29 am mike young—

hi lincoln,

what you’re saying is common and often true

but i feel like i, for one, am able to stop doing that skippy/surfy stuff when i want to read a story online, if i like the story and it’s good and it’s got my attention

i always read the new yorker stories online, even

and if i can slow down and read a story that really captures my attention online

then surely other people can too

i have a very carbonated brain

so people with better brains should be able to do this even better

i think people can “rise above” the interaction methods suggested by an information medium (e.g. look, you can open a bunch of tabs! so why not go open a bunch of tabs!) and take control of how they intake information (e.g. “no thanks”), and i think that they should be given credit for being able to do that

which is something i tend to feel like these “the internet is a place of little attention” memes don’t do: give people credit for being aware of how their attention is working

i am not saying your point is as simple as that, of course

just that i don’t think internet “surfing” is as simple as that either

maybe it’s harder for a story to arrest me online

this is true

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:34 am Paul—

I’ve never purchased a biology mag. Maybe I should.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:39 am Ryan Call—

no, i was just curious, because i wished mason had had more in the library when i was there, but i never realized how i could actually add or request adds. i probably wont be trying at uofh because ill be leaving in may. but yes that was helpful.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:42 am darby—

i think i am less likely to give something more of a chance online if it doesn’t quickly prick interest, since it is easy to open something else and open something else. if im sitting in my comfortable chair with a physical book and a cup of coffee glass of wine, i dont have other entertainments waiting nearby i could grab hold of, it doesnt occur to me to not give something full throttle. so i relax a little and allow absorption instead of even peripherally considering tangential temptations. i’ll always be more comfortable reading print i think, easier for me to focus, its just a less complicated medium.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:43 am Lincoln—

I guess I’m not so sure people can really “rise above” the interaction methods, but I’m also not sure I’d phrase it as “rising above.”

For example, let’s say you are reading a long essay and then, in your email tab, you see you’ve gotten a g-chat. Now you have a blinking tab that is pretty distracting and perhaps contains some pressing info. Most people are going to go check the tab. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, I wouldn’t look down on it. but it does distract from attentive long-form reading.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:48 am Lincoln—

And regardless of what people can or can not do, I think focusing on what they DO do seems at least as relevant.

January 2nd, 2010 / 4:27 am Roxane Gay—

I hear what you’re saying, Lincoln, but I also think too much… power is given to the notion that our attention spans have devolved to that of simpletons. Good writing holds my attention, whether it is online or in print. I could just as easily be distracted while reading the print issue of Canteen by TV, or picking up my laptop or the phone or staring into the distance or whatever.

January 2nd, 2010 / 4:28 am Roxane Gay—

I mean really. Distraction is not unique to the Internet.

January 2nd, 2010 / 4:34 am Lincoln—

Distraction isn’t unique to the internet, but I find it hard to believe that a radically different medium won’t affect the way you interact with something. Well not only hard to believe, but not in line with my experience.

January 2nd, 2010 / 4:36 am Lincoln—

Also, for the record, what I’m saying has nothing to do with our attention spans evolving or devolving (although that might be happening too), and purely with different mediums having different effects.

January 2nd, 2010 / 4:49 am mike young—

Nah, nothing’s wrong with being distracted. I don’t think of it as a “rising above” either, really. All I’m saying is that sometimes I have read long things online, and I know other people who have read long things online.

Honestly, It’s almost like a weird persecuted feeling that I get when people say these things, like “Oh the internet is too distracting for you to read a 40 page story.” Because then I feel embarrassed or non-existent or something when I think “Well, I have done that.”

Obviously, I think there are a lot of things that are getting said about this technology that may or may not pan out, because we’re still in an early stage of cultural adaptation. Have you read any of Danah Boyd’s work? She is a sociologist who has done great stuff studying how people who’ve grown up with the internet use the internet. Some of it’s pretty surprising.

January 2nd, 2010 / 12:49 am mike young—

Nah, nothing’s wrong with being distracted. I don’t think of it as a “rising above” either, really. All I’m saying is that sometimes I have read long things online, and I know other people who have read long things online.

Honestly, It’s almost like a weird persecuted feeling that I get when people say these things, like “Oh the internet is too distracting for you to read a 40 page story.” Because then I feel embarrassed or non-existent or something when I think “Well, I have done that.”

Obviously, I think there are a lot of things that are getting said about this technology that may or may not pan out, because we’re still in an early stage of cultural adaptation. Have you read any of Danah Boyd’s work? She is a sociologist who has done great stuff studying how people who’ve grown up with the internet use the internet. Some of it’s pretty surprising.

January 2nd, 2010 / 4:59 am Lincoln—

heh, well if it makes you feel better Mike, I feel equally persecuted because when you guys say you can raise above distractions and become better people when you want to, I can’t even read a shitmydadsays tweet without flipping between 8 tabs.

I’m certainly not saying that long-form work has no place on the internet though, only that the reading experience is going to be different for most people.

I’ve heard of Boyd’s work, but I haven’t read it I don’t think.

January 2nd, 2010 / 5:08 am mike young—

hahaha, well, i think this might be the AA part of the conversation, but i too! i too used to think i couldn’t read long stuff online and then i found some story in some litmag, maybe even something off ploughshares or something, and i was like “fuck it, i like this, i am just going to read this whole thing without being distracted by anything”

and i did it and it wasn’t that hard, i just had to sit my head down, so to say

certain cosmetic things help a lot, like going full screen, getting wide margins, a comfortable zoom on the text, etc.

i think it might be cool to hear from other people who read long things online if they have any tips

(and hell, if we can read some the comment threads at this place we can probably read the recognitions in HTML)

January 2nd, 2010 / 6:05 am darby—

why

January 2nd, 2010 / 7:10 am Ben White—

It’s just an example, guys. Sean said you’ll get more eyes online than print. That’s probably true in aggregate. If you want to says those eyes don’t count because they’re silly eyes, that’s your choice. If you want to define “work” only as “literary fiction, mostly short stories,” okay-dokey. Most fiction you might read is probably novels, but given the number of and length of writing online, I read more people online by a significant margin. Once again, online probably isn’t better in a wide variety of rubrics, but it doesn’t make what Sean said any less true.

It’s a straw man to isolate the internet versus elite anthologies or big house novels. Most people’s “work” will never make it there. So, for your average writer, they probably will get more views online than print. It was a broad statement; take it broadly.

January 2nd, 2010 / 8:38 am Stu—

I tend to read more internet content if there are photos of naked women to accompany the stories. Speaking of which, anyone know where I can find something like that?

January 2nd, 2010 / 8:57 am darby—

right, i wasn’t arguing seans statement. this though… But overall, more reading clearly happens online than it does on paper now. …the way its worded felt false, or it feels like its making a broader statement about reading in general. but yeah, i agree, although maybe not as confidently, with your sentiment, as a fairly unpublished/average writer you’ll probably be read more online than in print given limited options/prospects. the argument feels dumb to me though, honestly. like why argue this? readership measurement in both arenas is vague and plagued with considerations. i mean, sean said he’ll argue it, but its really just a math problem. you cant argue math, and this math feels littered with too many unknowns. i kind of move forward under the sense that online or print, given equal tiers, produce fairly equal readers. Until one obviously topples the other, why worry about it?

i dont understand why it matters as a writer. i mean do i have some kind of stake in one medium vs. the other? what do i care as a writer? i should just spend my time writing, not caring so much about the medium something will end up in.

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:33 pm sean—

There are no naked women on the internet, Stu

January 2nd, 2010 / 3:36 pm Justin Taylor—

I’ll die before I surrender, Tim.

January 2nd, 2010 / 6:24 pm Lincoln—

But wasn’t in clear that Sean was talking about literary fiction and thus the strawman is actually bringing up some humor twitter account?

I mean if we are just comparing random online stuff to random print stuff, I’d still put money on the most read print work being more read than the most read online work. Newspapers, the most popular magazines, harry potter and dan brown books…. the most read print work is still in pretty high circulation.

January 2nd, 2010 / 6:30 pm Lincoln—

I agree with most of what you said but I’d also add it feels like something of a false dichotomy in the days of blogs and fictionaut and so on. If you goal is the most readers, wouldn’t it make more sense to print in print magazines and then reprint online?

January 2nd, 2010 / 10:33 pm chris—

Heartily agree. If George Saunders (or someone else I find consistantly engaging) has a 7000 word story anywhere online I have no problem reading it. Doesn’t even have to be fiction. I’ve spent hours in front of the laptop endlessly scrolling down an article concerning the shifting of the earths magnetic polls. If it’s engaging then it doesn’t matter what it is, people will read it.

I know I take peoples attention spans heavily into account when I choose stories for online publication. I tend to publish “longer” stuff online (1500-3000 word range) but only if I find myself instantly engaged from the first few sentances of the piece. For me, I like to read attention grabbing stories online and the slow burners in print.

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