Stephen King

No: the problem isn’t ebooks. They’re just the malevolent familiars of two dark and ancient gods: the internet, and big business. People have been buying more and more of their reading material from Amazon and other online retailers, and less and less from small shops; before that, they were buying from Waterstones or W H Smith or some other high-street chain.

So, if Mr King really wants to fight back against the evil, to pour a metaphorical bucket of pig’s blood over the head of the telekinetic prom queen – sorry, I’m running out of King references here – he’s not going far enough. If he wants people to “stir their sticks” and get down the bookshop, he should ban his latest from being sold online at all.

In fact, he should insist that it’s only sold at independent booksellers: preferably dusty ones that smell of leather, run by kindly old men, with wooden shelves and ancient first editions and a bell that rings when you open the door.

Read more.

He may not save bookstores, but he’ll have fewer bootlegged copies swarming the internet.

By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Don’t expect to see an e-book edition any time soon of Stephen King’s new novel, “Joyland,” which will be published next month.

Digital books pioneer Stephen King is holding onto the e-book rights to his upcoming novel “Joyland” in hopes of driving people to bookstores. Jeffrey Trachtenberg reports on Lunch Break.

Mr. King, an e-book pioneer, held on to the novel’s digital rights in hopes of spurring his fans to buy the print edition in bookstores. He said it is unclear when he will make the coming-of-age tale available digitally.