Unlike most magazine publishers who want to show off their flashy video content and social media-integrated features when they make an app, The Paris Review wanted to keep it simple.

“I dragged my feet about and ignored the idea of making an app for fear that if we made one, it would take us away from what we do best, which is creating a place for discovering and presenting new writers,” said Lorin Stein, editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. “I was afraid that the bells and whistles would lead us down a primrose path and that half of the staff would be dedicated to making videos.”

But Stein came around when it became clear that an app would be great for international distribution. “Ever since we moved our printing to the States in the seventies, it has been difficult to distribute in Europe,” Stein told AppNewser. ”Our highest concentration of readers after New York is in London, so it made sense to let people subscribe digitally. We wanted to use the technology but not one inch further than made sense for what we do.” Read more

Paris Review editor Lorin Stein made headlines last month when he spoke about the changing world of literary journals: “We used to think of [the readership] as a little old lady who lived on the Upper East Side … [She's] moved to Florida and now she’s on Facebook, on Skype, with her grandkids.”

In our Media Beat interview this week, Electric Literature co-founder Andy Hunter explained how his literary journal has coped with this evolving readership.

The complete interview is embedded above. Stay tuned the rest of the week for the next two installments. Hunter will be one of many guests at Mediabistro’s eBook Summit on December 15th.