Tuesday, July 25, 2000
It's scary: Readers paying for King's Net novel
By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Horrormaster Stephen King's experiment in human behavior seems to be paying off.
Using the honor system, the best-selling author asked people to pay him $1 to download the first installment of his new book, The Plant, from the Web. Fifteen hours after the release, 75 percent of the 34,027 downloads had been paid.
The impact may be chilling for the traditional publishing industry and thrilling for e-publishing.
“The genie's out of the bottle and no one can put it back,” said Robert McCormack, chief operating officer of 1stbooks.com in Bloomington, Ind. “I expect other name authors to follow.”
Mr. King's publishing house disagreed.
“It really doesn't mean anything except that Stephen King can do a lot of things that no one else can do,” said Adam Rothberg, Simon & Schuster corporate spokesman.
The second installment will be online Aug. 21. Mr. King, who has had 22 best-sellers since 1980 through the traditional publishing industry, asked people to pay $1 per download through amazon.com. If 75 percent of the downloads are paid off, he will release installment No. 3 on Sept. 25.
The last official count of downloads, at 3 p.m. Monday, was 34,027, said Marsha DeFilippo, manager of Mr. King's Bangor, Maine, business office.
Mr. King called the tactic an experiment in human behavior. He told the audience of Good Morning America he wanted to see if he could get “computer jockeys” who download from the net for free to pay.
He also said he wanted to shake up the publishing industry.
Stuart Applebaum, Random House's corporate spokesman, wasn't shaken.
“They've been downloading all day, and we're still in business.”
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