"Not only are we going glueless, look Ma, no e-Book! No tiresome encryption!"
King Posts New Work on Internet
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) _ Stephen King plans to begin an experiment
in direct publishing Monday by posting the first installment of a
new novel online and asking readers to pay through the honor
system.
Installment one of ``The Plant'' will be posted on King's Web
site on July 24 and installment two on Aug. 21. Part three will
appear in September if ``pay-through'' equals or exceeds 75
percent, according to a message on his Web site dated July 11.
Readers will be asked to send King a check or money order for $1
per installment in a direct transaction that King describes as a
way to thumb your nose at the publishing industry.
``My friends, we have a chance to become Big Publishing's worst
nightmare,'' the Web site reads. ``Not only are we going glueless,
look Ma, no e-Book! No tiresome encryption!''
The novel, to be posted in parts ranging from 5,000 to 7,000
words, is described as ``sort of funny and at the same time pretty
gruesome.'' It describes a ``vampire vine'' that takes over the
offices of a paperback publishing company and offers financial
success for human sacrifice.
King, 52, said he's counting on two things: honest readers, and
a story that will be good enough to keep them reading.
``Remember: Pay and the story rolls. Steal and the story
folds,'' he wrote on the site. ``No stealing from the blind
newsboy!''
The multimillionaire horror author got the idea after a reader
mailed him $2.50 out of guilt at having read his e-book, ``Riding
the Bullet,'' for free from an unauthorized Web site.
That work was only available online through several book-related
Web sites. It went on sale in March. King wrote the book while
recuperating from being struck by a van last summer.
On the Net: stephenking.com |
