It was only a matter of time until the internet world took notice. All it needed was somebody like Stephen King to do it.

The web was created as an information resource, and what is the oldest, most oft-used information resource in the world? The book.

Just as Napster is re-writing the interaction between user and commodity in the music industry, so Stephen King has sent shockwaves through the publishing industry with his new book, The Plant.

Or should I say e-book. Ever since the svengali of horror published the novella Riding the Bullet on the net, the e-book has become the Pokemon of the internet community. Now, King intends to release his book The Plant in chapters, asking for donations of a buck an episode.

He doesn't intend to enforce this, but if the money received differs too vastly from the number of downloads, King will just not publish the remaining chapters.

And the venture has been a success, with part one of The Plant downloaded 100,000 times.

Whatever your opinion of King's work, what he has done is given the industry a swift kick. His position and authority has made other companies sit up and take note.

Amazon.com, who poo-poohed the whole notion of the e-book, have recently announced a joint venture with Microsoft. And Adobe have also been making rumblings, with ythe support of the US based barnesandnoble.com.

The publishing houses' initial reaction was that of concern for their future. Publishing direct to the reader would negate their existence. This is rather blinkered, as only a certain cadre of authors - the lite - could do this on any worthwhile scale. Smaller authors will always need support and marketing.

And that's where we turn to www.onlineoriginals.com, the first e-publishers, long before Stephen King made the whole thing cool. They even have the honour of having the first e-book to be accepted for the Booker prize.

Although nothing will ever replace the feel and companionship of a good book, what the internet offers is variety and innovation. And the main advantage is that a prospective reader can browse through endless tomes by unknown authors in their own home.

Sites like www.

onlineoriginals.com free publishing from the stranglehold of the major publishing houses, and allows the smaller author to look for interest.

The internet will not replace the bookshop, nor will it radically change the face of publishing for a long time to come, but it is already providing a worthy addition to the field which gives young writers more hope and more scope to push their art forward.

PICTURE: NEW LEAF:Best-selling author Stephen King, whose new e-book, The Plant is being published on the Web in chapters.