Stephen King offers serial novel over Internet

NEW YORK - The latest tales of horror from Stephen King can be found in cyberspace.

King on Monday offered up the first two installments of his new serial novel online, asking readers to pony up a buck for each copy they download from his Web site, www.stephenking.com. If the honor system works, the episodes will continue.

It could be a scary venture for publishers, who were eliminated from the process in this latest cyberspace venture.

''We see it in the vein of an experiment rather than a permanent move,'' says Simon & Schuster president Carolyn Reidy. ''We're confident that publishers add enough value to the process that authors are still going to want to use them.''

Simon & Schuster worked closely with King on his previous electronic publishing effort, a novella for hand-held devices that sold more than half a million copies in March.

The new novel, ''The Plant,'' is about a creeping ''vampire'' plant that takes over a publishing company. But King says the only people he's interested in scaring are his readers.

''I love my editors, and I like my publisher,'' King says in a message on his Web site. ''I love the smell of glue.''

Publishing industry insiders agree with Reidy, viewing King's experiment as a testing of the waters by a hugely popular author rather than a blueprint for what's to come for all writers.

''This may work for Stephen King, but it won't work for 99 percent of the people out there,'' says Larry Kirshbaum, president of Time Warner Trade Publishing.

But if King proves his point, and he gets payment for 75 percent of the downloads - the minimum he wants for the series to continue - it would go a long way toward challenging the conventional wisdom that people are unwilling to pay for anything they see or hear on the Internet.

The big question is whether the honesty system will work.

Unlike King's ''Riding the Bullet'' novella, which was released in an encrypted format, downloads of ''The Plant'' will be in the open PDF format, which can be copied and printed at will.

King is counting on people making a credit card payment online or sending in a check or money order. Amazon.com will process the payments.

''This ain't Napster,'' he says. ''Take what you want ... and pay for it.''

While many publishing executives are wishing King well, most are skeptical about the public's willingness to pay.

Mort Janklow, a literary agent who represents hundreds of authors, sees a huge future in the electronic distribution of books once good business models are in place.

''These are highways with no cars on them. I own all the cars,'' Janklow says. ''After they finish with all the distribution patterns they will need product.

''That's a fellow sitting up in Maine having fun, but it's not a way to run a business.''

Writers, agents and publishers recognize that making a product available in a new way and getting a lot of people to buy it are two very different things.

''I don't think technology changes basic power relationships between an author and the marketplace. You still need a lot of money and power to promote a book,'' says Jonathan Tasini, president of the National Writers' Union. ''The same people who already make a good living at the top of the bestseller list may have another way to sell, but I don't believe there will be a dramatic change for other authors.''

But the fact that a popular author can do away with his publisher, however briefly, has given people who edit, make and sell books for a living something to contemplate.

''It writes in the largest possible letters that publishers must prove their value in finding an author his or her audience and doing it better than the author can do it by his or herself,'' says Simon & Schuster's Reidy.