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Mosaic 1 Reading, 4/e
Brenda Wegmann
Miki Knezevic

Internet Publishing

Narrator: Fifteen-year-old William Bass enjoys surfing the Web, downloading sports articles and music. And he downloaded something else for the first time, Stephen King's latest book.

Bass: Well it's the comfort of your own home, of course, and you don't have to go out and buy it. It's right there any time of the night. A bookstore might be closed, and you have the computer right there.

Narrator: King made available on his Web site the first installment of his novel The Plant. Price for the reader: $1, on the honor system. There is some incentive to pay too. King says if revenue runs less than 75% of the downloads, he won't finish the book. Regardless, this electronic publishing that skips the publisher and goes right to the reader left the book world in a buzz. Thinking is it could be big publishing's worst nightmare. Those who follow the book business don't think so.

Publisher: It doesn't change the fundamental working of the industry. The functions stay there. It seems scary because it is unknown. Stephen King trades on the unknown.

Narrator: With more books online, faster connections now with DSL, cable, and fiber optics, and bigger computers, it means the death of the old-fashioned book on paper, right?

McCombs: Absolutely not.

Narrator: Jillian McCombs is SMU's [Southern Methodist University] top librarian. She believes the simple technology of ink on paper will survive just fine.

McCombs: A computer allows you to go back and forward, but there are no visual cues. For instance, in a page in a book situation you can remember that dog-eared page back 30 pages where you first read about Estela doing X, Y, or Z. But on your computer screen, it is a little harder to do that.

Narrator: The SMU library offers e-books and McCombs hopes publishers add more, especially from little-known authors who don't have King's marketing clout. As far as paper books, the final chapter has yet to be written on their demise.









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