Stephen King’s ‘Joyland’ pirated as e-book -- like all the rest

Pirated e-book versions of Stephen King’s “Joyland” have surfaced online. That’s notable because King, to support the print book being published by small indie Hard Case Crime, decided not to issue an e-book of this particular novel.

It’s not notable, however, in that just about every book Stephen King published is available as a pirated e-book.

On one pirate site, major bestselling novels by King available for illicit free download include “The Shining,” “The Stand,” “Pet Sematary,” “It,” “The Green Mile,” and “The Gunslinger” -- and that’s all just one bundled package. Newer novels “Under the Dome” and “11.22.63” are there too, as is “Joyland.”

“Joyland” publisher Charles Ardai was unruffled when he heard the news. The pirated e-book is “just one of the many punches you have to learn to roll with in the rough-and-tumble world of modern publishing,” he told AppNewser.

Ardai said, “In the end you have to rely on the good behavior of the vast majority of the audience -- I see no reason to think that pirates represent more than a small fraction of all consumers.”

King was speaking to those consumers in May when he told the Wall Street Journal, “I have no plans for a digital version.... Maybe at some point, but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”

The problem is that to some people, a pirate site looks like a digital bookstore -- one where everything is free.

ALSO:

‘The Son’ rises with the saga of a Texas family

Spies and sex. It was just too tempting to resist.

Ira Silverberg leaves the National Endowment for the Arts

Carolyn Kellogg: Join me on Twitter, Facebook and Google+