The success of King's latest book download may push publishers to invest in paperless technologies
Stephen King recently announced that the latest progress in his latest novel will be available for download for $1. However, what Stephen King has done is instead of having every user pay before they download, he goes on the goodwill system where you can download and pay later. By doing this, he has created a test to see if internet users will steal if they can get away with it and a test to see how honest people are over the internet. The test goes like this; if 75% or moreof the users pay for the download, Stephen will continue putting his books available for download. If not, he will stop doing it. So far it has been going well; as of July 31, approximately 76% of the people payed or promised to pay. Here is what Stephen King has to say: "How many have paid? 116,200, or 76.38 per cent. 93,200 have paid up front with credit cards, using Amazon.com's service. 23,000 have promised to pay later, and these payments are showing up already (one guy sent me a silver dollar). The pay-through rate has been higher than I dared hope." -http://www.stephenking.com This isn't the end of it. If all goes as planned, 7-11 downloads may be needed before the book is complete meaning it could cost users over $10. And, Stephen is thinking of raising the price on some, longer chapters. And, Stephen may get a double wammy, because some fans may preview the book, and then purchase the book when it comes out. What do his publishers think of this? They think that it is a test and that they beleive that they add enough value to justify the costs of publishing. Lets just see if they will be saying that in about five years when E-books and Ebook readers become widely available. Like many people who have their jobs at stake, denial seems to be the thing people do. Deny it and it won't happen. Well, we have seen stock exchanges starting to go wireless now. For years, the people who's jobs were at stake, said that it wouldn't work and couldn't be done. What they were saying didn't make sense, because the work they do is repetitive and computers are perfect at repetitive stuff. We are seeing it now with CD sales. Take a look at your nearest record store and take yourself back about three years. It isn't so crowded anymore, is it?
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