After the enormous success of "Riding The Bullet," Stephen King is trying his pen at web publishing again. Only his next novel, The Plant, is more ambitious than the last. In theory, The Plant is an experiment in self-publishing that could undercut the traditional offline publisher model used by King's distributor, Simon & Schuster.

In fact, The Plant isn't available at any outlet, publisher, ebook manufacturer, or online store. The only way to get a copy of the first installment is to go directly to the source, http://www.stephenking.com, where users can purchase the novel for the nominal cost of one dollar.

This is a Steven King challenge. By becoming the media and the medium, The Plant's publishing agency, Philtrum Press, which consists of just two people including King, is experimenting with a possible method of self-publishing that - if it works - could change the playing field for publishing agencies.

The first installment, to be released July 24th, will be between 5000-7000 words long, and readers are guaranteed a second installment on August 21st. But if at least 75% of readers haven't paid, and metaphorically speaking 'watered the plant', by the time of the second installment then the series gets the ax. Or, as King writes, "If you pay, the story rolls. If you don't, the story folds."

According to Corporate Communications Director for Simon & Schuster, Adam Rothberg, King's self-publication of The Plant is, "very much in character with what we know and like about Stephen, he's always pushed the bounds of what you can write and how you can publish." And as to the success of The Plant, Rothberg says he has no idea if it will work.

King describes his new work as "funny, and gruesome, kind of like Christine." The Plant is set in the early 80's before e-mail, a time when fax machines where a new technology. And in his own final analysis, he doesn't see the success or failure of The Plant as an end to the publishing industry. But if it does succeed, King believes the self-publishing model could serve as a vehicle for literary, mid-list and marginalized writers to succeed.