The Plant

The Plant is an unfinished serial novel published in 2000 as an e-book by American author Stephen King.

The novel is about the editor in a paperback publishing house, who gets a manuscript from what seems like a crackpot. The manuscript is about magic, but it also contains photographs that seem very real. He writes the author a rejection slip, but because of the photographs, he also notifies the police where the author lives. This enrages the author, who sends a mysterious plant to the editor's office.

The story is told in epistolary format, consisting entirely of letters, memos, and so on.

History

King wrote a few parts of a story by the same name, and sent them out as chapbooks to his friends, instead of Christmas cards, in 1982, 1983, and 1985. Only three installments were produced by Philtrum Press before the story was shelved, and the original editions are hotly sought-after collector's items today.

In 2000, King published the novella Riding the Bullet over the internet, making it the world's first mass-market e-book. However, there were technical problems with downloading, and hackers eventually cracked the encryption on it.

Later that year, King decided to release The Plant directly via his website, unencrypted and in installments. People could pay a one-dollar fee for each installment using the honor system. He threatened, however, to drop the project if the percentage of paying readers fell below 75 percent. He viewed the release as an experiment in alternate forms of distribution, writing on his website at the time, "My friends, we have the chance to become Big Publishing's worst nightmare."[1]

More than 200,000 customers downloaded free copies of the story in a 24-hour promotion through the Barnes and Noble website.

The book received over the desired 75 percent for its first installment, but this fell to 70 percent after installment two. With the third installment, the numbers surged back up to 75 percent.

King decided to double the cost of the fourth part of the novel to two dollars, while at the same time doubling the number of pages to 54. He also promised to cap the total cost of the entire book at a total of 13 dollars. Paying readers dropped to 46 percent of downloads. The number of downloads decreased overall as well.

The last installment was published on December 18, 2000. The book has yet to be completed.

References

  1. ^ What is Stephen King trying to prove?, Stephen J. Dubner, New York Times Magazine, 2000-08-13