A SLIDE:
In Laura Miller's vitriolic dismissal of hypertext fiction, she does raise an interesting point: who is reading hypertext?  Maybe the follow-up question to Mark's "Where are the hypertexts?" might be "Who's reading the hypertexts?"  Can you talk a little bit about target audience, demographic, goals of the hypertext author/publisher?

Sandye smiles.  That Stein quote reminds me of the voyeur in us all... we like to think we can "know" strangers in intimate ways
Mick says, "And here I mean the Eastgate author, the Web author, the author utilizing the multilinear writing space regardless of platform -- though platform may play a real role."
bernstein says, "Stuart Moulthrop's rejoinder was 'Who reads _Salon_?', Laura Miller's home"
MichaelJ says, "Who is reading anything? is a good question. The Laura Miller piece was an inside job, someone getting back at an editor of the NYTBR for giving Coover a bully pulpit."
Mick [to bernstein]: and it was a good rejoinder, but it didn't really address the question at hand ... and I ask it as a friendly audience.  Who *is* reading hypertext?
bernstein says, "Different hypertexts have different audiences."
bernstein says, "The audience for literary hypertext fiction is quite similar to the audience"
MichaelJ says, "It isn't the right question. Who is reading literary fiction is a better one. The good hypertexts sell about the same, almost exactly, as good literary fictions/poems, etc"
bernstein says, "for literary paper fiction:"
MichaelJ exclaims, "Wow! Synchronicity!!!"
bernstein says, "The audience for hypertext philosophy is similar to the audience for paper philosophy"
Mick hears the answer in stereo.
bernstein says, "It's also a very bad idea to use headcounts and popularity contests as a way to avoid judging art; this was Miller's real intent."
MichaelJ says, "Seriously, though, that was the most vicious aspect of the Times put-up job, how it ignores the similarity and pits the one against the other"
Mick [to bernstein]: well, that's sort of like saying the audience for _Kairos_ is similar to the audience for _CCC_ or _Rhetoric Review_ ... or more likely, C&C.
Mick says, "In fact, I would guess that most of the audience of _Kairos_ reads the paper journals .. while the reverse is NOT true.  Don't you think there might be a similar demographic breakdown for literary novels/hypertexts"
Sandye says, "There still is that 'attempt' to determine effectiveness...headcounts and dollars are easy to tabulate..."
Joel [to bernstein and MichaelJ]: With that agreement, that we're working with a similar audience for hypertext and paper, lemme ask this:  do you get the sense that audiences come to those two forums for different reasons?  Do they expect to get a different kind of scholarship from paper and from hypertext?  I just wonder if the forum produces different expectations (and investments) from one single reader.
Joel wonders if that makes sense.
Sandye [to Joel]: what does a reader expect when she 'opens' hypertext fiction?
bernstein asks, "Sandye: the headcount argument says that Poe and Kate Chopin and Bach were all failures....do you want to defend that?"
MichaelJ [to Joel]: Makes sense to me. The audience I know best, my students, looks to *and appreciates* the different aspects of these media. To Mick's question, I'd say that, among professionals, yes I think the audiences are bifurcated, but among emerging audiences (students, web habituees, etc) the split is disappearing
Joel [to Sandye]: I'm not sure, but I wonder if that expectation, whatever it is, is different for papertext and hypertext.
Sandye [to bernstein]: I'm not saying that headcounts and dollars signs are good, but a human tendency.. we like to measure success and these sorts of markers are the easiest to find and count...
Mick says, "I think that Poe/headcount idea is an interesting rejoinder ..."
bernstein says, "We like to measure success by dollars and celebrity. But our job is to use our skills to achieve more than that."
Mick says, "But in the last 100 years, millions of people have read Poe.  So the headcount idea works ... and that leads me to think ..."
MichaelJ [to Sandye]: There's a great irony here about headcounts, where in the mainstream corporate/marketing world the ability to target and just-in-time is thought to be the key while we are held to a standard that requires a wide audience.
Mick says, "[dangerously] that we can't assess the "success" of a hypertext fiction like _Afternoon_ until we're well into the next century."
Mick  <-- Devil's Advocate
Joel smiles at Mick.
bernstein asks, "So Clancy and Grisham are the greatest writers of our era?"
MichaelJ [to Mick]: Absolutely. In fact I'm constantly aware of how much I rode the swell and how likely it is that the work will seem minor, a John the Baptist for whatever will emerge
Joel laughs.
Mick [to MichaelJ]: well, he still ended up a Saint.  So you'd be in good company.
bernstein isn't laughing
Mick [to bernstein]: OK, Mark -- why not?
bernstein asks, "look -- you KNOW there's more to good writing than box office. Why pretend otherwise?"
Mick says, "Poe was a great writer ... in retrospect.  Clancy is a popular writer.  I'm just saying that to treat them in the same discussion, we have to wait until 2045 to find out if Clancy was "great.""
Sandye asks, "of course there is more to good, successful writing than boxoffice, but how should we determine what good hypertext is?  What standards (if there should be any) should we use since we don't want to use boxoffice?"
Mick says, "Same with Joyce and Kaplan and ... etc."
bernstein says, "The place of [afternoon] won't be resolved for a century, sure -- that's inevitable. But YOU need to resolve it sooner."
MichaelJ [to Mick]: One thing I agree with utterly (and wonder at the general naivete about) is that, despite the Whatever's Laws which make chip speeds change every n months, history still takes centuries. We can't rush (nor can Bill the Gateskeeep or Ted the Grave Turner) the gradual accumulation of cultural understanding. In fact my standard def of "culture" with my students is "the experience of living in a place over time..."
bernstein says, "I believe that there is more to art than box office -- even posthumous box office."
Mick says, "OK, I'm gonna try a reach here, since we're talking about "over time" -- there are at least two kinds of "time" we can discuss ..."