E-book 'em!

AtRandom publisher Jonathan Karp is looking for literary revelation -- and mass readership -- from digital books.

By Janelle Brown

Aug 8, 2000 | Just a few weeks ago, Stephen King announced that he was self-publishing his latest book as a digital download. For a buck an episode, readers were invited to download "The Plant" from StephenKing.com -- and as of July 31, more than 150,000 had taken him up on his invitation. This came just months after King's previous e-book, "Riding the Bullet," drew more than half a million readers.

Clearly there's some significant public interest in e-books (or, at least, e-books written by bestselling authors fond of blood and gore), and the publishing industry is swiftly stepping up to the plate. Last week, Time Warner announced the lineup of its first digital imprint, iPublish.com, including digital versions of titles from its more popular authors. And over at MightyWords, a site that recently received $20 million in funding from Barnes & Noble, thousands of authors are selling their works directly to their fans.

Not to be left out, publishing juggernaut Random House last week announced its own digital imprint, called AtRandom. AtRandom will boast both fiction and nonfiction titles in e-book and print-on-demand formats from authors such as Elizabeth Wurtzel and Lewis Lapham, as well as quirkier titles such as "The Muppets Take Moscow," which describes the making of a Russian version of "Sesame Street."

At the helm of AtRandom is one New York book editor who knows a thing or two about the digital world: Jonathan Karp, best known in digital circles as the editor of some of the most influential technology books of recent years -- all of Po Bronson's books, Kara Swisher's "AOL.com," Gary Rivlin's "The Plot to Get Bill Gates," plus "eBoys," "Future Perfect" and a host of others. But in a world where King can sell his book straight to readers and reap the profits himself, does the world still need editors and publishers?

Why are you interested in producing an e-book imprint for Random House?

Editorially and creatively, I think there is a real opportunity here to do something that isn't being done anywhere else: long-form narrative nonfiction that is more substantive and goes deeper than anything most magazines are doing right now. Stories that really are developed and satisfying but don't need to be door-stopping tomes. I love working with journalists and storytellers and writers who can develop a story, and this seems like an ideal medium for that.

You're thinking of this as being a forum for writing that hasn't been done before?

It's been done before, but not really distributed. This job could turn out to be like an electronic version of the New Yorker. That's the appeal of it to me.

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