A King-size Download

Cable World, March 20, 2000

As if the print guys didn't have enough to worry about in the Internet age, writer Stephen King unveiled his new short story, Riding the Bullet, on the Web last week.

Just after midnight March 14, King's 16,000-word ghostly tale was available for download to desktops, laptops, Palm Pilots and specially designed Web reading devices -- isn't that an oxymoron -- like Rocket eBook and SoftBook.

In one fell swoop, King cut out a slew of middlemen. Publishers, printers, distributors and book sellers probably feel like James Caan in Misery.

If you had a Palm Pilot, by the way, the short story would take up 217 pages.

The only thing missing was the audio version narrated by Vincent Price. But we're sure that day will come.