Fungible Convictions

Printed stories hold an advantage over electronic: physically, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

Readers choose which books to read often by which literature is likely to be permanent. They’ll choose to read something by a well-known author or by a highly respected magazine with a long tradition and wide readership. They do this to avoid reading crap.

A single story can take half an hour to read. Reading a lit magazine can take up parts of days. So why take the time to read online if the words you’re reading won’t be good, findable, and sharable in six months’ time?

Always give the reader the sense that stories and poems you post online will be available for all time—even if your site is brand new. Give each piece a halo of permanence, the feeling that it is special among all other stories. Don’t post twelve poems on a single page. Give the reader the option to print a page without navigation or ads, perhaps even as a PDF. And animate your archives by reposting older work if an author has published something new.

A literature site isn’t a news site, full of articles waiting to be overtaken by other concerns. A literature site must either make each piece precious, or it must change what the value of literature is, like McSweeney’s does by posting daily, short, entertaining pieces.