Stephen King News Page 1

SITE LINKS: Home Page Purpose Using this Site Advertising Contact Us PUBLISHERS: Make New Listing Update Your Listing Communications AUTHORS: Make New Listing Update Your Listing Communications BROWSE: Lists of Publishers Lists of Authors SEARCH: Lists of Publishers Lists of Authors OTHER SITES: AcqWeb's Directory Lights Directory Literary Mkt. Place List of More Sites	Stephen King leads the way into On-Line Publishing		MORE NEWS  Stephen King Random House RELATED LINKS: The Great Publisher's Paradox. Why it has been counterproductive to successful publishing. Read it. The new model of publishing -- how it will ultimately benefit both authors and publishers. Read it.
	It was inevitable that someone would try selling a book on-line, for all people to download, just to see if it was profitable. That Stephen King did it first, foretells much about the future of on-line book publishing. King was neither mad at the system, nor irate at major U.S. Book Publishers, but he was very much aware of the blockade that new and upcoming authors face, in trying to get their works marketed under the limits of the conventional system. His effort is also a testament to the fact that the old model, of big Publishers forcing authors to go through Literary Agents and refusing to deal directly with them, is outdated, and will not survive long. With his stature as a globally popular author, King had nothing to prove to anyone, and did not need the revenue from the on-line sales of the book to survive, as might other authors. What King had was the personal resources to "test" out the new model: 1. See if the public would pay for a book by the honor system, 2. See if the on-line selling model was viable for other authors, 3. See if a new sales model could be established on the internet to help all those authors who may have good works to sell, but for whatever reason, were rejected by Literary Agents, and 4. See how the Major Book Publishers would react to the idea. Regardless of Stephen King's success with "The Plant", one thing is for certain -- King will go down in history as the person who validated the new on-line book selling model that will dominate all future, timely book publishing. Article Date: 25 July 2000

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