But for the author who cannot count himself among the most popular in the world? Does an Internet author stand any chance to succeed financially by distributing his works, for free, online?
Tucker Max is the first author to build a traditional writing career out of exposure he gained online.
He is the first online author to receive a major book deal from an existing Internet fan base, rather than being published and connecting afterwards with his readership.
After failing to get a manuscript approved by any publishers in the early 1990s, Max put his stories online and focused his efforts on building his own fan base around them.
He has used the distributive, connective, and collaborative tools available on the Internet to establish a following around his collection of raunchy short stories.
After his Web site became extremely popular he managed to leverage his readership into a book deal, thereby overturning the same print media industry that had rejected him. In his own words:
Five years ago you fucking retards [publisher Harper Collins] rejected my manuscript, told me my voice had no market, and basically that I sucked. I knew that not one of you had any idea what you were talking about, so I went out and created an empire on my own. What resulted was a massively successful website, a bestselling book, and a lock on the hardest demographic to reach. (Max Blog)
The “voice” Max speaks of, as I will show, is the voice of authenticity.
Authenticity is the reason Max has become so successful where so many Internet-based creative writers fail. In his own words, Max tries “to give the reader the sense that [he is] in the room, telling them the story as if they were a close friend” (Max writing).
In addition to the tone of his short stories themselves, the whole of Max's presence on the Internet fosters an authentic experience for his reader.
The “emotional connection” Max creates through his creative and non-creative works on his site resonates with his readers.
Although some of Max's stories appear both online and in print, the behavior of the readers of each medium differs dramatically.
Internet users are impatient: they need only click a few times to find a more interesting site, and are consequently much less forgiving of uninspiring content.
Internet readers scan to examine the worthiness of a block of content, not wanting to waste their time reading a text that does not interest them.
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has studied Internet user behavior since the early 1990s. His “eye tracking studies” (examining where users' eyes are attracted at different types of sites) have revealed a common thread in user behavior: the “F pattern” (Nielsen “F”).
On the Internet, readers do not read every word top-to-bottom.
Typically, readers
- look first across the top of the page,
- then examine the left-hand side of the body of text
- then scroll down,reading horizontally again towards the middle of the page.
The resulting heat map forms an F pattern—a long bar across the top, a horizontal bar on the left, and a shorter bar in the middle of the page (Nielsen “F”).
As evidenced above, the majority of users forgo reading the block of text from top to bottom as they would in a book.
To grab a user's attention and keep it, a creative author needs to be “eye-catching” at every point throughout a text. One sub-par paragraph can push an Internet reader away.
Every part of a Web page plays a role:
- the title works to attract the reader to the page
- the beginning of the content must adequately summarize the content or “hook” the reader
- the content itself cannot be formatted into blocks of text that intimidate a Web surfer
The average person reads about 25% slower on a computer screen, so they do not feel comfortable reading blocks of text (Nielsen Alertbox).
The cost of obtaining new reading material on the Internet for a user is negligible. A Web user need only move their hands to the mouse or keyboard to discover more appealing content.
If hardcopy content fails to hold a reader's attention, replacing the work with another means physically finding (and possibly buying) new material.
The readers' physical position restricts their access to creative works because, unlike the Internet, physical limitations to creative works exist for hardcopy works.
Because reading creative works outside of the online realm is an activity for which readers set aside time, they are willing to read text in block form.
Web readers however, unfettered by physical restraints, behave far more impatiently.
On the Internet more appealing content is only a few seconds away, so users do not wish to waste time reading content that does not appeal to them (Nielsen Alertbox).
As the Internet evolves from static one-sided communication at an audience, to collaboration with an audience, the most successful Internet authors work to compose content that connects on a personal level with their readership.
Tucker Max's repository of short stories, as well as the Internet tools he uses daily all aim to forge a personal connection around his work; a personal connection that he leverages into an online community.
1 million people visit Max's site every month, and he converts the traffic he receives into a massive following within the 18-35 demographic of both sexes.
Over the last three months (January through March 2008) the average visitor to tuckermax.com viewed 14.4 pages (Alexa Max).
For comparison, Wikipedia's users view 5.0 pages per visit (Alexa Wikipedia).
The elaborate internal link structure and “surfability” of Wikipedia enables easy browsing within the site, yet a typical Tucker Max user looks at three times the amount of pages on tuckermax.com than a Wikipedia user does on wikipedia.org.
The users come, and they stay. Why? The answer, again, is authenticity.
The one thing that separates Internet authors from traditional authors is the tools they can employ to give the readers of their content (who are also users on their site) the experience of interacting with a real person.
Instead of being a face on the back cover of a good book, successful Internet authors like Tucker Max use the channels available to them online to connect emotionally with their readership.
A reader can
- look at an author's online bookmarks
- participate in message boards of which the author is a part
- even E-mail the authors to get a direct response
Every part of Max's site is designed to promote the authentic connection between author and reader.
The short stories that catapulted Tucker Max to Internet celebrity began as “Reply All” E-mails from Max to his friends from the University of Chicago.
After commencement they stayed in touch through a group E-mail list.
The modus operandi for the list: one member regaled the others with tales of debauchery, alcohol-induced wildness, and other noteworthy situations in which he had recently found himself a part.
Max’s stories entertained his friends so much that they suggested that he put his stories online.
He did, and each successive E-mail he sent to his friends he also copied to his Web site.
Max’s career thus began as a side project while he was planning for his “real world” future attending law school at Duke University.
Max tells an extremely raunchy story.
Most all depict
- graphic sex,
- misogynistic behavior
- a narcissism that can bother even the most jaded reader
One begins to wonder if these texts have any value beyond being the literary equivalent of an X-rated National Lampoons movie.
Max
- tells the stories exactly as they happened,
- defends their veracity to the death
- pulls no punches describing every detail
He writes to give the impression he is talking with a close friend, and consciously tries to make his readers care about the outcome of the characters (Max “Writing”).
The resulting works take on the characteristics of an informal oral story.
Some of the raunchiness and tendency towards the extreme reflects the findings of storytelling scholar Gillian Bennett.
She conducted an exhaustive study into the difference in storytelling characteristics between the genders in America through their recantation of urban legends, concluding:
Male storytellers seem more prone to tell the story for laughs or to disgust their audience, whereas female storytellers seem to prefer to warn and scare. In fact it could be that male storytellers tend to focus upon the central male character (the killer), whilst female storytellers concentrate upon the central female character (the girlfriend/wife). (Bennett)
Bennett’s observation that male storytellers aim to tell urban legends “for laughs or to disgust” is an adequate summation of the characteristics of Max's stories.
Max states on his Web site that element in his stories serves one of two functions: either “be funny” or be essential to the understanding of the story (Max “Writing”).
Other comedic writers that target the 18-35 year-old male demographic have commented on the reception of their work.
Blogger and author of withleather.com Matt Ufford writes about sports while incorporating comedy, opinion and sex on his site.
In an interview with the Washington Post on May 29, 2007 he remarks that,
"Every week, there's somebody who takes offense to something, but that's part of being a comedy writer. If nobody is complaining, it probably wasn't funny. You are hoping for some kind of feedback" (Saslow).
Feedback is exactly what has made Tucker Max successful both online and in the print media.
Max's stories become the first way Max shows authenticity to his readership.
When a recantation of past events from the first person is told orally and impromptu, the speaker often interjects commentary on the events in the past through the lens through which he views them in order to clarify the story.
When put into written form, the “stepping back” becomes a literary device aimed to, in Max's own words, “put the reader into the story” (Max “Writing”).
In many of the stories Max not only describes his drunken escapades in detail, he frequently juxtaposes his thoughts at the time of the action to his understanding of events at the time of writing.
Max speaks to this phenomenon on the Frequently Asked Questions page on his Web site.
The question: “You claim you are such a good writer, and your stuff is pretty funny, but why do you keep switching tenses in your stories? It drives me nuts” (Max “FAQ”).
To which Max replies that “The whole concept of tense in speech has given me problems,” continuing on to point out that, due to lack of creative writing or English classes in college, “so some of the basic things that most writers get right, I fail” (Max “FAQ”).
But he wants above all to write in his own voice and, “By switching tenses, I write the way I speak, and by alternating between past and present I put the reader into the story, instead of just recounting it” (Max “FAQ”).
In the story entitled, “Tucker Tries Buttsex, Hilarity Does Not Ensue,” Max recounts a time when he was living in Miami and casually dating a girl named Jaime.
Neither had had anal intercourse before, and Max wanted to experience it.
After describing the date after which the couple had decided to attempt the act, Max writes, “Now, what she did not know, and what I have not told you yet, was that I had a surprise waiting for her” (Max “Beer” 152).
The surprise, the reader learns shortly thereafter, is Max's friend hiding in his closet, taping the incident. Before Max drops this bombshell, he offers this disclaimer:
[Aside: Before I tell you what the surprise was, let me make this clear: As I stand right now, 27 as of this writing, I am a bad person. At 21, I was possibly the worst person in existence. I had no regard for the feelings of others, I was narcissistic and self-absorbed to the point of psychotic delusion, and I saw other people only as a means to my happiness and not as humans worthy of respect and consideration. I have no excuse for what I did; it was wrong and I regret it. Even though I normally revel in my outlandish behavior, sometimes even I cross the line, and this is one of those situations....but of course, I'm still going to write about it.] (Max “Beer”152)
He continues later, “No really—I know that I will burn in hell. At this point, I'm just hoping that my life can serve as a warning to others” (Max “Beer” 152).
When these stories are taken out of the confines of Max's inner circle of friends and put online for public consumption, his reading audience does not know him personally.
Saying “I was awful, I know it, but I know better now,” addresses the stereotypical thoughts of a reader unfamiliar with Max’s work.
Max creates the illusion that he is speaking personally with the reader by stepping out of describing the action and into a direct address to the reader.
Part of the popularity and universality of Max’s writing owes itself to the “intimate” tone of the stories.
Max comments on his site: “When you read words that sound like the words you or someone you know might say, or things that you have heard before, it brings the characters alive, gives the reader a stake in them and their outcome and draws them into the story” (Max “Writing”).
Stories of
- debauchery
- philandery
- wonton disregard for societal norms
of the magnitude described in Max's stories have no place within formal discourse, further adding to the intimate and authentic feel.
Stories such as Max's are told orally in the company of very close friends. By reading them, the reader becomes one of Max's confidantes throughout the duration of the story.
Max also establishes a group identity in which the reader is a part through his use of pop culture allusions.
I will focus on one of Max's longer stories: “The UT Weekend.” This particular short work details a weekend Max spent visiting his cousin (“TheCousin”) at the University of Tennessee.
Allusions perform a vital structural function as well: they are optimized for online readers.
Most of the allusions Max employs (both pop culture and academic) involve the use of capitalized proper nouns.
As Web readers scan the document in order to decide whether to spend the time to read it, capitalized words outside of the beginning of sentences grab the scanning reader’s attention.
The two men are talking to three girls, one of which (“the fat one”) is trying desperately to spend time with TheCousin (Max “UT”).
Max comments that he observes the first law of scarcity: two of them plus one of him equals “my desirability increasing substantially” (Max “UT”).
The two girls begin to act catty towards each other, and Tucker likens their behavior to “a bad episode of Elimidate.”(Max “UT”)
Now while being considerably less descriptive and vile as some of Max's other similes, this phrase connects Max to the reader by forming a group identity of which she (if she understands the allusion) is a part.
Tucker has seen enough episodes of the reality dating show Elimidate to know the difference between a good episode and a bad one.
Any reader, who has also seen multiple episodes of the reality show Elimidate, can automatically relate to Max.
He has watched Elimidate, the reader has watched Elimidate, and forge a common bond in recognizing how the two girls’ catty behavior reflects the typical comportment on Elimidate.
Other allusions permeate “The UT Weekend.” About halfway through the story Max describes how “Tucker Death Mix” which is
- One quart of Gatorade
- One can of Red Bull
- One liter of Everclear, which is 190-proof grain alcohol
affects him (Max “UT”).
He compares his behavior while intoxicated from drinking “Tucker Death Mix” to that of Phinneus Gage, saying it had the same effect “as a nail gun would on my frontal lobes […] I lost what little social tact I have, and shouted anything course or rude I could think of” (Max “UT”).
While this reference seems to be much more obscure than that of Elimidate, for those who know the story of Phinneus Gage, Max paints the picture perfectly.
However many readers have not understood the allusion and have since asked Max to explain it.
Here Max offers a telling case study in how the collaborative powers of the Internet influence the conception of creative texts themselves.
Because of the influx of E-mails concerning Phinneus Gage, Max actually modified his story after its initial publication to cater to his readers.
Immediately after he mentions Gage, Max inserts in brackets “[for all you uncultured simpletons, see the end for an explanation of who Phinneus is]” to clarify for the many readers who do not understand the it (Max “UT”).
At the end of the online story he includes this addition:
People email me asking this all time: Phinneus Gage was a foreman on the railway. An explosion accidentally sent a 3 foot long, 13 lb. metal rod into his skull, removing his left frontal lobe. He survived somehow and the only damage done was a dramatic change in personality. Before the accident he was "dependable, industrious, well liked." When he recovered, he was "restless, loud, profane, and impulsive […] Who does that sound like?" (Max “UT”)
As a direct result of his readers’ response to the story, Max physically changes his text accommodate their interests.
Without the connectivity that the Internet provides between author and reader, and truthfully without Max’s commitment to provide an authentic experience to his readership, this clarification would never happen.
Readers confused about the reference to Phinneus Gage would continue to skip over the allusion and thus be oblivious to the implications of it.
Coincidentally, Max recopies this story into his paperback publication of short stories: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. The intertextual brackets and the appendix to the end of the story are noticeably absent.
This collaboration illustrates one important difference between creative works online and those in print. Once a work is published in print, changing the original becomes nearly impossible.
Replacing every hardcopy edition with a minor revision such as this would be time consuming, expensive, and impossible.
On the Internet, however, creative texts can be in a constant state of flux.
Modifying the original copy of an existing text can be done anytime, with the changes preserved for every future reader. In order to keep new readers occupied and old readers coming back, Max must offer them something beneficial: humor.
One more notable popular culture reference is found in “The UT Weekend.” After Max imbibes the aforementioned “Death Mix” that turns him into Phinneus Gage, he sits on a friend’s porch and begins to insult passersby on the way to the UT-Miami football game.
To one “big fat black guy with cornrows” Max screams, “‘HEY HEY HEEY! FAT ALBERT FUCKED LUDACRIS AND THEY HAD A SON!’” (Max “UT”).
A reader who understands this allusion already has a preconceived notion of each of these African-American celebrities.
Fat Albert is an overweight cartoon character and the rapper Ludacris is known for his trademark tight braids.
Max fuses the mental images of these two established celebrities into one cohesive whole to, hopefully, create a humorous response for each individual reader.
While reactions vary, another textual meme present in Max’s creative work tries very hard to initiate a humorous response.
Immediately following the laundry list of insults of which the Fat Albert reference is a part, Max describes the reaction of the crowd that played witness to his spectacle:
I was like this [Phinneus Gage] for a solid two hours. One girl had to go inside twice to fix her mascara, which had run all over her face from the tears she was crying laughing at my comments. By the time we headed to the game, there were about 40 people hanging out on the porch listening to me rip everyone that walked by. (Max “UT”)
Although the responses from each individual reader will vary, Max legitimizes the humor of the situation within the text by describing in detail the reaction of one particular witness.
Laughing until tears streak the mascara all over the young woman’s face means that at least one person thought Max’s comments were funny enough to cry over.
Not only did her mascara run once, but twice, doubling the impact of her reaction. Max uses the description of laughter frequently to convey the humor he finds in a situation to the reader.
Max’s aesthetic descriptions of laughter may be an effective biological way to communicate humor.
A study by Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at the University College London, has found that the brain responds to the sound of laughter:
Scott and her fellow researchers played a series of sounds to volunteers and measured the responses in their brain with an fMRI scanner. Some sounds, like laughter or a triumphant shout, were positive, while others, like screaming or retching, were negative. All of the sounds triggered responses in the premotor cortical region of the brain [but] [t]he response was much higher for positive sounds, suggesting they are more contagious than negative sounds — which could explain our involuntary smiles when we see people laughing. (Thompson)
Although her research did not take into account reading vivid descriptions of laughter, Scott demonstrated the effect that laughter has on the people around the amused person.
Max’s creative work recognizes this connection, because he frequently follows or precedes dialogue with vivid descriptions of character’s humorous response.
One such instance occurs earlier in “The UT Weekend.” After Max successfully accomplishes setting up his cousin with the overweight girl who was attracted to him, Max describes the morning after:
“I wake up the next morning and find my cousin, naked, sheets wrapped clumsily around his torso, asleep on the floor next to the sofa. Why the floor? Because Fatty was so big that both of them couldn't fit on the sofa at the same time. I was in tears laughing at the scene” (Max “UT”).
Max’s description of his own laughter adds value to the scene that would be absent with a simple recantation. Humor is the primary method used in Max’s short stories to establish a personal connection with his reader.
Not only does Max’s creative work strive to create a personal connection, the non-creative text on Max’s Web site does as well.
He offers a glimpse into his writing process while composing his narratives. The tone of these ruminations reflects the one-on-one intimate tone of the copy on his Web site as well as the short stories as well.
He offers an extensive “Guide to Writing” that details his writing process, the literary devices he employs and why, as well as his take on pitfalls every new writer faces.
Max directs the thought process surrounding his writing to the reader in his characteristic conversational tone, reflecting an informal discussion with a friend.
One example Max cites is the story of his twenty-first birthday, in which he became extremely intoxicated and vomited all over himself.
Although not an inherently humorous story, Max attempts to bring out humor by physically placing the reader in the scene. He says:
I bring you into the bar when I'm drinking, I put you at the table with me, I put you in my mind as I go from coherent to obliterated, and let you see what I see. Take just the bathroom scene. [...] Every little detail adds to the absurdity, which is where the humor lies [...] Don't bog the reader down with lots of useless details that don't move the story along. Every piece of info in the story must do one of two things: 1. Be funny, or 2. Be necessary to understand the story. (Max “Writing”)
The relatively unlimited amount of storage that Tucker Max has available on the Internet allows him to offer his thoughts concerning his authorial intentions to his readers in a “More Info” setting on his site.
While it would be possible to print such a guide as a supplement to one of Max’s paperback story collections, Max has free reign to post whatever he deems necessary to his Web site.
A curious reader can read about Max's writing process, the questions he is most frequently asked, and even view the pictures he posts to the photo-sharing site Flickr.
None of these connectivity tools exist in hardcopy form. The ease of access to Max’s extensive online presence brings our inquisitive reader into his life online, a feat that cannot be accomplished as effectively outside of cyberspace.
But Max’s personal brand extends beyond the realm of his creative work.
Far from being a name and headshot on the back cover, today's authors take full advantage of the Internet as a means to build and connect with an audience—like marketer and renowned author Seth Godin.
He maintains an ad-free Blog9 in order to communicate among the community he has created around his books.
The Blog posts he writes are short (often around 150-200 words), reader-centric, and updated frequently.
One short, personal example: I E-mailed Seth concerning a post he wrote, and he responded to me immediately.
The text of the E-mail: “good point xander!” Godin made it a point to read what I, a relatively anonymous reader of his Blog, said and took the time to reply to my E-mail.
Writing an E-mail is free, so attentive authors can send short responses to “fan mail” quickly and cheaply.
But Tucker Max does not write tips about business success.
Max's stories about sleeping with a number of women in the “low triple-digits,” having sex with two women in one day, or berating people he finds unacceptable beg the question, “Who is this man? What does he do? Is this real?”
Max utilizes modern social networking tools to answer those questions for his readers across a variety of platforms.
An inquisitive user can discover just exactly how Max lives his life online.
The development of technology on the Internet has brought about a change in the way people interact, raising expectations for quality content.
Experts call the new application of the Internet “Web 2.0” as defined by the man who coined the term, Tim O’Reilly; Web 2.0 is “the Web as a platform used to connect people.”
A popular way to form connections among a large group is to build a “community” around one common interest.
For the creative author who puts his work online, every reader is a potential group member.
Max has been incredibly successful at converting readers into members of his community.
A cursory glance at the number of registered users on the message board on tuckermax.com reveals a membership of over fifty-five thousand users (Rudius Media). Max makes his online activities transparent through links on his home page:
- del.icio.us
- StumbleUpon,
- MySpace
- an RSS feed
- and the culmination of the new mix of content: a message board.
By clicking on these links on his site, a visitor can glimpse the authentic online life of the Tucker Max.
The first link points to Max’s del.icio.us page. Del.icio.us functions as a “social bookmarking” platform, which is essentially a publicly-viewable list of links to Web pages that a user saves for future reference.
An inquisitive visitor can see exactly what Max has deemed important enough to bookmark, exactly when he bookmarked it, and any comments he has added to each link.
Any user can subscribe to the RSS feed for Tucker's del.icio.us page: the RSS feed will update the reader whenever Max adds a new link.
Del.icio.us also makes it possible to see how many other people (if any) have bookmarked the same site.
As of 3/8/08, one-hundred and sixty people have bookmarked tuckermax.com (Del.icio.us Tuckermax.com).
Perhaps the most conspicuous user: TuckerMax, who commented in December 2006, “This guy is awesome” (Del.icio.us Tuckermax.com).
A similar service called StumbleUpon also provides the functionality to examine the sites that a specific user has liked, disliked, and commented on.
By following the link from Max's site to his StumbleUpon homepage the user can be assured that the person with the username “tuckermax” on StumbleUpon is the Internet author Tucker Max.
Max's inquisitive user can submerge herself in the online life of the author by viewing videos, Web pages, and even friends that Max has liked and added to his bookmark repository.
Links to Max’s Facebook and MySpace profiles, social networking sites designed to enable the sharing of information within a personal network, also figure prominently on Max’s homepage.
An RSS feed relays recent updates of his Web site directly to those who subscribe to it, either through a program called an RSS aggregator or via an E-mail message.
A curious visitor can elect to be updated the moment content on Max's website changes.
These sites are filled with online users taking advantage of the benefits they offer.
At last count, del.icio.us had three million subscribers, and StumbleUpon serves just fewer than four and a half million users (StumbleUpon.com).
The difference, however, lies in the accessibility that online transparency creates for an author, especially one who details such a lifestyle as Max does.
The reader can submerge himself in the online life of the author he reads, even going as far as watching a “slideshow” of the videos Max has bookmarked on StumbleUpon.
The nexus of the author's collaboration between and among community itself comes in the message boards on Max's site.
The sole purpose of this site is discussion for the community built around the company Max established through his site.
To give a small indication of the amount of effort that Tucker Max puts into maintaining the conversation within his forums, Max's del.icio.us tag “threadtopic” has (as of 4/8/2008) three hundred and forty-four posts, which is the second-highest post count for any category on his del.icio.us page (Del.icio.us threadtopic).
In order to foster discussion on his message board, Max bookmarks those Web sites that he deems worthy enough to begin a conversation about.
Every time a registered user of the Rudius Media message boards comments on a thread, the site displays
- a graphic depicting a personal icon
- the member's name, the number of posts
- and their “validation points” earned by commenting.
Tucker Max has posted on the Rudius Media message boards a total of 14,734 times as of 5:45 pm on April 17, 2008 (Rudius Media).
According to the statistic provided on his profile he joined the message board 28 August 2004 (Rudius Media).
That means that, on average, for the last three and a half years, Max has posted to his message board just over eleven times every day.
The majority of the posts Max writes deal directly with problems faced by members of his community.
For example, one thread started on February 28, 2008 by the user Ontherocks deals with an extremely personal issue, which Tucker Max offers the user advice.
In Ontherocks' own words:
“Right now I'm at a crossroads and I'm unsure what to do [...] I'm the only son and only male offspring on my father's side of the family. He wants me to takeover the family business thats (sic) been in our family for over 200 years” (Max “Expectations”). Ontherocks continues on saying that his brain is “just plain stuck.” (Max “Expectations”).
Within two and a half hours Max responded with a nearly five-hundred word advice piece counseling the reader from his own experiences. He says,
I am going to tell you this in a short, simple way because it is nowhere near as complicated as you are making it: Go live your life the way you want to. Your brain is stuck because you are letting the expectations and desires of other people control you. IT'S YOUR LIFE. (Max “Expectations”)
A reader can join the conversation by registering on the message board while also taking advantage of the community Max has built around his site.
Max is far from the only one offering advice on his message board. One very important thread allows aspiring authors to post creative work they have written for review and commentary by the community.
The message board thus becomes a virtual workshop for writers who wish to have their work critiqued and reviewed by the members of Tucker Max’s community.
Each author publishes his work for no monetary gain, only for help by the other members.
Discourse of this kind typifies one way the Internet fuses a creative work with the discourse surrounding it, creating a new kind of text.
The aforementioned Ryan Holiday provides another worthwhile case study.
While the Blog itself does not have the reputation for quality of an institution like the Harvard University Press, Holiday has succeeded in stimulating conversation about the topic of digital content distribution with his aforementioned post on Harvard's decision to publish papers online.
While his post only contains only about four paragraphs and can easily be read without scrolling past the fold, the discussion surrounding his work continues well down the page (Holiday).
In addition to the original text written by the owner of the space, twelve other readers decided to contribute to the text by voicing their comments.
The text does not end after publication; the discussion continues on the same page adding to the text, with the author taking part occasionally.
On the Internet virtually anyone can write and publish creative works and stimulate discussion.
The new author needs to first attract and keep a reader’s attention, then convert that reader into part of an online community around his or her work.
This is exactly what Tucker Max has done, which was not possible before the tools of the Internet came to the fore.
The curious reader can connect authentically with the author first, and then use those same tools to connect with other interested readers.
The resulting discourse forms an integral part of the presentation of a text in the digital realm.
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