King returns to roots as he branches out
Almost 16 months after he was struck by a van and nearly killed , Stephen King tells USA TODAY's Bob Minzesheimer about his new book, his experiment in self-publishing on the Internet and his thoughts on retiring.
Q: In eighth grade, you wrote novelizations of movies and sold them for a quarter. Forty years later, you have a serial novel on the Internet (www.stephenking.com) and are asking readers to pay $1 for each installment. Is there a similarity?
A: Absolutely. It's the same entrepreneurial thing. It's writing something and saying, "Do you like this? Show me how much you like it."
Q: In each case, it caused trouble — with your teacher and with your publisher.
A: That depends on your definition of trouble. My publisher was a bit fried. But I'm not the only writer they have. I don't have to do everything with them. It works both ways.
Q: Does a writer as popular as Stephen King even need a publisher anymore?
A: The more time you take to do this other stuff, the less time you have to actually write. And that's what I enjoy doing — writing. I don't want to be a full-time entrepreneur.
Q: When you launched your serial novel on the Web, you wrote that it could be a nightmare for big publishing. Has it?
A: Only a self-induced one. ... Publishers see doom in every new innovation. But this idea that only a Stephen King could do this is bull. ... It's there for everyone. People want to read good stories. If you write it, and it's good, people will eventually find it.
Q: Is the honor system working ?
A: It's murky; 220,000 readers have paid for either one or both of the first two installments. The overall pay-through is 75% (of those downloading ). But that dropped from 88% for the first installment to 69% for the second. A lot of people aren't hip to the technology. They've had trouble downloading.
Q: Do you see your new book, On Writing, being used in writing classes?
A: Maybe, but there's profanity and a certain amount of crudeness, and that's intentional. Some of my books have been banned from schools. ... But I'd rather exist outside the boundaries of some teacher shoving a book down the throats of students.
Q: How do you think the literary establishment will react to the book?
A: I have no idea. Some people will sneer and think, "There goes Huckleberry Finn trying to teach table manners." But I've been treated better by the establishment in the last five, 10 years. And there may be some sympathy because of the accident
Q: How are you feeling?
A: Pretty good. There's still a lot of pain in the hip, especially on damp days. The rest of the leg is strong. I can get along without crutches, and I limp only at the end of the day. There's no pain in the knees, but the lower legs still ache. ... If the pain continues, they may operate on the hip again and take out all the metal and fill the holes with some fake-bone stuff. It comes out of what looks like a caulking gun.
Q: Given all your projects (a novel, The Dreamcatcher, out in the spring; another in 2002; a six-hour TV miniseries, Rose Red, in production; a collaboration with Peter Straub on a sequel to The Talisman; plus numerous movie negotiations), it seems there's a Stephen King Inc. at work.
A: It's possible to have too many toys, and in the real world, you can't play with all your toys at the same time. ... But I'm just one guy writing stories. It's still a cottage industry. One guy having fun. I've rejected more possibilities, a lot of synergy — haunted houses for Disney, Stephen King World.
Q: Even before the accident, you were talking about giving up writing.
A: There are a few things I still want to do. I want to finish The Dark Tower series. But you can get to the point where you start repeating yourself. I'd like to avoid that. I can't stop writing, but I could get off this publishing thing, running around, signing books, doing interviews, becoming a media person.
Q: On that note, we'll let you get back to your writing.
A: Actually, it's time to feed the dog.