Re: THE PLANT: It Worked

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Aug 02 2000 - 00:42:17 MDT


>http://www.stephenking.com/sk1_073100.html
>
>More than 76% of the people who downloaded Stephen King's "The Plant Part I"
>actually paid for it.

Yeah, but look at the costs he cites:

How many downloads so far?
                                 152,132

                                 How many have paid?
                                 116,200, or 76.38 per cent.
                                 93,200 have paid up front with
                                 credit cards, using
                                 Amazon.com's service. 23,000
                                 have promised to pay later, and
                                 these payments are showing
                                 up already (one guy sent me a
                                 silver dollar). The pay-through
                                 rate has been higher than I
                                 dared hope.

                                 Costs to you, as of Part 1?
                                 $124,150 for print ads in
                                 Publisher's Weekly and USA
                                 Today, Load test for the Web
                                 Servers, Project Managment
                                 Fees, Server setup fees and
                                 Compositor's fees to Mr.
                                 Michael Alpert, who has done
                                 his usual great job of making
                                 the Philtrum product look
                                 smart--ladies and gentlemen,
                                 give him a hand. There's also
                                 the cost of maintaining the
                                 servers through which my story
                                 is downloaded. Marsha may
                                 have an idea of what these fees
                                 amount to, but so far I don't.
                                 Not added to these costs are
                                 my services as writer and
                                 Marsha's as all-around
                                 whirling dervish.

                                 A lot fewer downloads than
                                 "Riding the Bullet."
                                 Disappointed?
                                 Not yet. You need to remember
                                 that "Bullet" was a magnificent
                                 one-shot, available from a lot
                                 more sources and in many
                                 cases given away for free. If
                                 THE PLANT gets done, people
                                 are going to be downloading
                                 well into 2001, even with
                                 longer segments on offer. If
                                 those who have downloaded
                                 Part 1 so far download the
                                 following ten or eleven
                                 installments, the total
                                 downloads would be 1,673,452.
                                 Do the math. It's pretty good
                                 math, if people keep coming
                                 back.

As Hal says, if. (But he won't need to pay that much in future advertising
blitzes on this.)

Damien Broderick



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