-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,39470,00.html Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,39470,00.html"> Horror Story: King Doubles Cost</A> ----- Horror Story: King Doubles Cost by M.J. Rose 3:00 a.m. Oct. 17, 2000 PDT The fourth installment of Stephen King's online serial, The Plant, is a go. King had said that as long as at least 75 percent of readers pay, he'll continue writing. Well, the latest figures show that 75.61 percent of all downloads for the third chapter were accompanied by payment of his $1-per-chapter fee. The fourth installment will post on Oct. 23, barring technical difficulties, according to his assistant. But unlike previous installments, part four will cost $2. It also will be three times as long. "We're doing it this way so that the total price for the serial will not exceed $13," said King's assistant, Marsha DeFillippo. The plan, she said, is that the paying percentage of readers would be reviewed again before part five is posted. After part eight, the installments will be free. E-books go to the Vatican: Dick Brass, vice president of technology development at Microsoft, was at the Vatican on Oct. 16 to announce the release of a new e-book, Christian Bioethics, by H.E Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Genoa. In addition to the e-book which is being released in the Microsoft� Reader format, Cardinal Tettamanzi and his team have created a website where they'll receive questions via email that will be addressed by an expert panel including physicians, theologians, legal experts and the Cardinal himself. These replies will be incorporated into future editions of the text, so the e-book will be continually updated to offer advice on developments in the biotechnologies and their ethical and moral impact. The e-book version of "Christian Bioethics" is available for download to PCs, laptops and Pocket PCs. "When Gutenberg created the first printed Bible, it began a bountiful tradition that linked religion with literacy and learning, a tradition in which the Catholic Church has long been the standard-bearer. Countless people throughout history have benefited from the Church's work, and this will continue thanks to the cardinal's decision to embrace e-books. We are honored to be a part of it," Brass said. Support for ebrary: Random House, Pearson and McGraw-Hill have each made an investment in ebrary, the online research service scheduled to launch this fall. Ebrary is the process of collecting and digitizing content from books, journals, maps, periodicals and digitally archived material, most of which has not previously been accessible on the Web. Users will pay a fee only when they print material. There is no subscription fee such as that proposed by another such service, Questia, set to launch in January. "The fact that this is the first-ever co-investment by three major publishers in this space demonstrates the broad range of support for ebrary's model and philosophy," said Christopher Warnock, chief executive officer of ebrary. Warnock said that this model will benefit publishers, libraries, booksellers, and Internet users, while protecting the authors' copyrights. If you e-give it, will they read? The University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center made 1,200 of its 55,000 online texts available on Aug. 6 as free e-books that can be downloaded and read using free Microsoft Reader software. "We wanted to see what would happen if we put e-books up without any barriers," said David Seaman, the center's director. In two months, 753,922 copies of those e-books have been downloaded. "And none of our titles were bestsellers. In fact, many were texts published by the university," Seaman said. Some of the most popular titles have been Aesop's Fables, War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, and Darwin's Origin of Species. Alice in Wonderland has been downloaded over 4,000 times in September alone. Readers have come from more than 100 countries, with a significant numbers from Asia, Africa, and the Russian Federation. The audience has included the general reading public, high school and college students, teachers and parents. "It was fairly easy for us to set up this experiment and get it going because we build our documents once in a standard format such as XML and then let the market dictate which way to express it," Seaman said. "This runs counter to what the publishing industry is doing by creating content in a priority format all and winding up with just that one document." Everyone knows what happens when you sell a paper book for $25 and what happens when you give away e-books, but what is not yet known, said Seaman, is what options will work in between those two points. "This is not business as usual anymore. You have to be open to letting the markets teach you. We're curious about subscription services, lending fees, and prices of, say, a penny, or a dime, or even a dollar," he said. Seaman does not think that the current reading devices and software solutions on the market will work in the long run. "It is like saying to a customer that if you don't buy the publisher's special decoding eye glasses you can't read the book. Imagine a bookstore doing that," Seaman said. Copyright � 2000 Wired Digital Inc., a Lycos Network site. All rights reserved. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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