NEW STEPHEN KING WORK TO BE RELEASED AS E-BOOK ONLY"
© Richard Loeffler
The headline showed up in my mailbox at least a dozen times this week. According to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, Simon & Schuster Inc. plans to release a short story by Stephen King in digital format only. "Riding the Bullet" is a 66 page (16,000-word) ghost story written by Stephen King and available only in the electronic format. King's short story will be available in formats for Glassbook, netLibrary, Nuvomedia's Rocket eBook, Peanutpress.com, SoftBook Press, NuvoMedia's Rocket eBook, PDAs and ordinary computers. SoftLock.com Inc., is providing technology that allows any retailer with a Web site to also offer the book for sale. In a bid to stop copying, the material has been encrypted to prevent it from being printed once it is downloaded.
King wrote Riding the Bullet shortly after a minivan struck and almost killed him on a rural Maine road in June, 1999. If the story had gone through the normal print publishing channels, it would have taken more than a year to appear in bookstores. "What's exciting is that we are able to go from Stephen King's computer to the reader in a fraction of the print-book publishing arc," said Kate Tentler, vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Online. "And, we can offer this wonderful story to readers in whichever electronic format they are comfortable with: on an eBook device, a handheld Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), or on a computer."
"I'm curious to see what sort of response there is and whether or not this is the future," said King, who wrote Riding the Bullet shortly after his near-fatal accident in June 1999. King has since written several works. Kate Tentler, v-p and publisher of S&S Online, told PW that King approached S&S about publishing the short story as an ebook. "He's always interested in exploring new formats, as are we," Tentler said. Tentler said S&S is talking with other authors about writing directly for digital delivery, but noted that the publisher has not established a formal e-publishing program. "With the King deal, we're saying we're in the electronic publishing business and we'll look at projects that seem appropriate" for the format, Tentler said. Although King is doing no publicity for the title, excerpts can be read at http://www.SimonSays.com.
"This has the potential to redefine the mass market for us," said Jack Romanos, the president and chief operating officer of Simon & Schuster, the publishing unit of entertainment giant Viacom Inc. "We are rooting for the format to work."
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