"Finn" short story

[JJ123]

Stephen King | New Short Story, May 25th, 2022

Anyone happen to know how Scribd works...it says it is a subscription service, but does it also offer the ability to pay for the story and download it without subscribing?

[Ben Staad]

No idea but based on the site it looks like only a subscription based service. Looking through the FAQ it looks like you can only access saved things through their app.

See here:

https://support.scribd.com/hc/en-us/...Scribd-offline

Stephen King | New Short Story, May 25th, 2022

Anyone happen to know how Scribd works...it says it is a subscription service, but does it also offer the ability to pay for the story and download it without subscribing?

[Brian James Freeman]

It's kind of funny that Scribd is apparently now a legit subscription service because in their early days (2007 or 2008), they were "Napster for books" and just let people post ANYTHING. That meant you could find illegal PDFs of every major author's work posted for free. Scribd got sued over it by a bunch of big names. So, I guess somewhere along the way, they decided to go legit. That's pretty cool.

Brian

[JJ123]

Thanks for the replies/info.

That's too bad one would have to subscribe. Always a pain to do that, then cancel.

Obviously, I respect the decision, it's the way King wanted to go, but I'm curious...any opinions on why, as a business decision, this was made? Previously he released a story on a charity site; now, this Scribd site, that would, I assume, pay him a flat fee (or an advance against reads) for the tale. What would he have made if he sold the story as an individual download on Amazon? Would the cut Amazon demands be too much?

I wonder if it depends on the subject matter of the story. Reading the logline of the tale, I concede it might not be of interest beyond hardcore completists; all of us here want to read it, but would younger kids who found King after the It films want to? In that sense, a fixed advance for digital rights perhaps is more logical. But what if this was a Dark Tower tale, or a short-story sequel to It...would the risk profile of not getting a fee/advance and instead speculating on number of paid downloads be favorable in an outsized way?

I don't know, but I would imagine King's agents, in conjunction with King himself (who actually is more business-minded than people think, from what I have read), always put thought into this sort of thing. For that matter, I would imagine Cemetery Dance also tries to figure out the best way to distribute something with some science backing it...anyway, would like to read this, but maybe I'll just wait for the next collection after Bazaar (hope that's soon!)...

[Martin]

Thanks for the replies/info.

That's too bad one would have to subscribe. Always a pain to do that, then cancel.

Obviously, I respect the decision, it's the way King wanted to go, but I'm curious...any opinions on why, as a business decision, this was made? Previously he released a story on a charity site; now, this Scribd site, that would, I assume, pay him a flat fee (or an advance against reads) for the tale. What would he have made if he sold the story as an individual download on Amazon? Would the cut Amazon demands be too much?

I wonder if it depends on the subject matter of the story. Reading the logline of the tale, I concede it might not be of interest beyond hardcore completists; all of us here want to read it, but would younger kids who found King after the It films want to? In that sense, a fixed advance for digital rights perhaps is more logical. But what if this was a Dark Tower tale, or a short-story sequel to It...would the risk profile of not getting a fee/advance and instead speculating on number of paid downloads be favorable in an outsized way?

I don't know, but I would imagine King's agents, in conjunction with King himself (who actually is more business-minded than people think, from what I have read), always put thought into this sort of thing. For that matter, I would imagine Cemetery Dance also tries to figure out the best way to distribute something with some science backing it...anyway, would like to read this, but maybe I'll just wait for the next collection after Bazaar (hope that's soon!)...

Just a guess here but King has a history of releasing through avenues he likes. He submitted Chattery Teeth to Cemetery Dance because he liked the magazine. He submitted UR two years after the Kindle was launched because he liked the Kindle. He may have wanted to support and bring attention to Scribd. I was unaware of the history Brian mentioned. They got my attention a few years ago because they have a significant audio book library and rather than follow the Audible pay be book model you can listen on demand as long as your subscription is active. I stayed with Audible so I have not used Scribd.

[JJ123]

That's interesting, Martin, I always thought King may have had some formula with these platforms, but if he does it just for reasons of liking it, then I guess that puts it in a different perspective and makes the move more understandable. And I take it the implication is that "Chattery Teeth" was the first story ever published by him in CD? Didn't know that, I thought there may have been earlier ones, but I can see that as being the case. What irks me now is I recall having that issue and then, for some reason, losing it. Wish I still had it! That was the first time I read the tale, and enjoyed it...

I too was unaware of the Scribd history of going legit, by the way...never really looked at the site previously, but I do recall it as being a place where copyrighted material could be found (I'm sure I must have read a thing or two on it, just can't recall what it was...)

[Martin]

Somewhere Mr. Chizmar has told the story of getting a submission from King and ignoring it as it was sent from his agent. King, then had the agent call CD to suggest that if they did not like the story King submitted, he had others. That led to Chizmar searching for the story. It is an interesting story but not sure where to find it.

[Brian James Freeman]

Somewhere Mr. Chizmar has told the story of getting a submission from King and ignoring it as it was sent from his agent. King, then had the agent call CD to suggest that if they did not like the story King submitted, he had others. That led to Chizmar searching for the story. It is an interesting story but not sure where to find it.

That is the gist of it! The return address on the envelope was the agency’s addy, so it had been sorted into to the Submissions to be Read pile.

Brian

[JJ123]

I just asked this same question about the other short story of note, so here goes: Anyone read this yet? What did you think?

[dannyboy121070]

I read an advance copy of FINN a month or two ago, and it didn't strike me as special enough to warrant writing a review. Basically a darkly comic story of kidnapping and mistaken identity. It really grabbed my attention at the very end, with a hint of something that would have been a great twist. I'd probably give it a six out of ten.

[JJ123]

Sorry for the long response time. I had actually read your reply the day after, but just didn't get a chance to write my own reply. Thanks for the insight into the tale. I am intrigued by the hint/twist aspect. Hope another collection comes out soon.