"It was at a recent science fiction convention while I was roaming the aisles of the huckster room looking for a particular book to add to my collection—I noticed a copy of 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King's second published novel. It was a first edition, but it was in far from fine condition—the dust jacket was ripped halfway up the front and had been crudely repaired with now-yellowed cellophane tape; the pages were dog-eared and stained; the binding was disintegrating; and stamped on the front endpaper was 'Discard from Hamilton Library.' The price penciled on the flyleaf was $100. And by the end of the convention the book had been sold at the asking price."

There was no need to worry, of course, about the market collapsing for Stephen King—as almost any book dealer knows, Stephen King's first editions (and his limited editions, and his galley proofs, and even books about Stephen King) have continued to climb in value. There have been some bumps along the road, of course, but a Fine first edition of his short story collection Night Shift still brings close to $1,000.

King's story has been extremely well documented over the years—as one of our most prolific authors, there's rarely been a time since 1983 when his books have not been present on the New York Times Bestseller List. Most people have read the story about his wife, Tabitha, pulling the first thirty pages of Carrie out of the garbage can and encouraging him to finish it rather than give up.

King started his writing career at the age of eleven, banging out story after story on his old manual typewriter. His first professional sale, "The Glass Floor," published in Startling Mystery Stories, came nine years later. The $35 check he received only added fuel to the fire; by 1972 he had written five novels (all unpublished—at that point) and literally hundreds of short stories, many of which had been published in "skin" magazines like Cavalier and Swank. His break came when he sent one of these novels to Doubleday, addressed only to "The Editor of The Parallax View." The editor of that book was away on vacation when the letter came in; fortunately for King, his manuscript was passed on to another editor, William G. Thompson.

Even though Doubleday rejected the manuscript, Thompson liked the young writer's storytelling ability and encouraged him to submit other work. After several false starts, Thompson finally offered King a $2,500 advance for his fourth book, Carrie.

King has often talked about the telegram he received from Thompson accepting the manuscript and how it changed his life. The real change, however, came several months later. Thompson had told King that Doubleday was auctioning off the paperback reprint rights to the book; when King asked about how much money it might bring, Thompson said that it would probably come in at about $10,000, though there was a slight chance that it would be more. (At this point in time, Doubleday shared the reprint money with the author on a 50/50 basis.) The day of the auction, King daydreamed about the prospect of $5,000 coming into his life—at times, he even dared to dream that it might go as high as $10,000. Finally, the call from Thompson came at the end of the auction. King asked if it had gone for $15,000. Thompson replied, "No, Steve, it went for a bit more." NAL had paid $400,000 for the paperback rights, netting Steve King $200,000—not bad for a fellow who was earning $6,000 a year as a private schoolteacher and working nights in an industrial laundry to make ends meet. This sudden influx of cash was the true bolt of lightning from the heavens—for the first time King no longer had to worry about money and could devote his life to writing full-time.

Carrie was published in 1974. Based on the sale to NAL, Doubleday decided to go all-out in promoting it. They produced 1,000 special advance reading copies to send to advance reviewers and bookstores. (This was in addition to the regular bound galley proofs, produced in a quantity of approximately 40, used for internal distribution.) Doubleday also did a large first printing of the book—30,000 copies, which was a huge number for a first-time novelist. Today, a Fine first edition of Carrie sells for around $750 (though a signed first will bring well over $1,000—more on signatures later).

From that point on, King has had a new book published every single year—in some years, as many as two or three.

'Salem's Lot was King's second novel, also published by Doubleday, in 1975. Carrie had not sold quite as well as Doubleday had hoped, so the first printing of 'Salem's Lot was set at 20,000. This book in Fine unsigned first edition now commands $800 or more.

There's a side story to this book's publication of interest to collectors. The first edition of 'Salem's Lot was priced at $7.95. One of the points of a true first edition 'Salem's Lot dust jacket is the inclusion of an error in the flap copy—the character "Father Cody" is misprinted as "Father Callahan." For many years this was considered the absolute first issue—until 1983, that is. I was working at Doubleday at the time as a publicist and had just finished doing the publicity on Pet Sematary. One day I was walking by the art department and noticed that the designers were cleaning out their flat files, throwing out the thousands of old dust jackets that had accumulated over the years. I saw a few King jackets lying in the discard file and asked if I could take them. Once I returned to my office, I started leafing through the dust jackets and saw three covers for 'Salem's Lot. I noticed, however, that the retail price was wrong—$8.95 instead of $7.95. However, the "Father Cody" error was present. I called my friend Bill Thompson and asked how this could be. Bill replied that the book had been originally priced at $8.95; however, at the last minute the sales department had decided that it was priced too high and should be reduced by $1. The dust jackets had just been printed with the original price, but they were still at the printer, so Doubleday made the call to have the printer price-clip the $8.95 and run the jackets through the press with the new price of $7.95. I realized that I was holding the three dust jackets that had been sent to the art department before the repricing. Today these three dust jackets, mated with first edition books, reside in the collections of the three top Stephen King collectors in the world. A dealer sold the third one about two years ago for over $10,000.

Early 1977 saw the publication of King's third novel, The Shining, the first of King's hardcover novels to hit The New York Times Bestseller List. 1977 also marked another event: the publication of King's first book published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Rage (originally titled Getting It On) told the story of a pistol-wielding high-school boy who takes over his classroom and kills the teacher. Rage was one of the early manuscripts King had submitted to Doubleday before Carrie was accepted. King wanted to see these earlier manuscripts published, but Thompson did not want King to overexpose himself to the market. King's paperback publisher, New American Library, readily agreed to publish the manuscripts under a pseudonym. Rage was followed by The Long Walk (1980), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982), and Thinner (1984). Sales of the Bachman books were unexceptional until Thinner in 1984, when the long-kept secret of Bachman's real identity was exposed. At that point the first four books were collected in The Bachman Books, which became yet another bestseller for King. (An interesting aside—in 1999, after the Columbine shootings, King decided to put Rage out of print forever due to its content. The mass market paperback, which previously sold for around $60-70, immediately shot up in value to over $100.)

After turning in The Shining, King committed himself to writing a major novel of Good versus Evil—The Stand would be almost biblical in its proportions as well, coming in at over 800 book pages. Given that it would take him more than a year to write, King persuaded Doubleday to publish a collection of his short stories in the meantime under the title Night Shift. Doubleday felt that a collection of stories was much less saleable than a novel, so they did a small (for King) first printing of 15,000 copies in 1978. The book sold out almost immediately, so Doubleday had to sell their own Literary Guild book club editions to meet the demand. As a result, a Fine first edition of Night Shift goes for close to $1,000—more than his earlier titles.

Trouble was brewing between King and Doubleday at this time, however; King was increasingly irritated at the fact that he was still receiving relatively small advances for his books even though he had proven his bestseller chops. In 1977 he delivered an ultimatum to Doubleday executives—he would offer them his next three novels (which were already written) for an advance of $3.5 million. In hindsight, this deal would have earned back Doubleday thirty or forty times its money, but the company was not going to be dictated to by an author. Thompson urged the company to accept King's offer, but the executives responded with a counteroffer of $3 million. King, incensed at this, promptly turned to the delighted New American Library who gave him his asking price. (In turn, the paperback-only NAL did what's called a "backsale," in which they sold the hardcover rights to the Viking Press—years later, Viking and NAL would merge under the Penguin umbrella.)

Within a few months, Doubleday had fired Bill Thompson in a fit of sour grapes, and the task of editing the massive The Stand was given to another editor. Knowing that King no longer had a future at Doubleday, the company declared that King must cut the huge manuscript (over 1,600 pages) by at least 250 pages in order to "keep the retail price down." King was furious, but he had little choice in the matter given his contract. It wasn't until twelve years later that his uncut manuscript was published (by Doubleday, ironically) as The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition.

At the time of the original publication of The Stand, Doubleday had two standard book sizes: A-size (5 1/2" x 8 1/4") and B-size (6 1/8" x 9 1/4"). The company published most of its books in the A-size format simply because they could run-on with their Literary Guild book club presses and thus save enormous amounts of money. For some reason, Doubleday published The Stand in the A-size format. The Doubleday presses were designed to print the comparatively shoddy product in which the book clubs specialized, so Doubleday books during the 70s and early 80s were among the lowest quality of all publishers. As a result, The Stand is very hard to find in Fine condition; many times pages will fall out of the glued binding after the book is read once. Also, Doubleday did not cover their dust jackets in plastic laminate as most other publishers did—as a result, shipping and handling of the books caused myriad scuff marks, tears, and stains. Therefore, a Fine first edition of The Stand will command over $600, even though it was published in an edition of more than 35,000 copies.

The Viking Press gave Stephen King the literary and financial respectability he had never received from Doubleday. In 1979, Viking published The Dead Zone, the book that King believes, even in 2000, to be his finest novel. It was printed in an edition of 50,000 copies. Collectors will see a sharp falling-off in King first edition prices starting with The Dead Zone. As previously mentioned, all five Doubleday books bring well over $500 in Fine first, while one can find The Dead Zone in Fine first for as little as $100. This can be attributed to the fact that the Viking press runs were much higher than the Doubleday editions, and to the fact that the Doubleday editions were much more fragile, making Fine copies harder to find.

In 1980, King's second novel with Viking was published: Firestarter. Considered one of his lesser works, this book is notable for the fact that it was the first King book for which a signed limited edition was published. Alex Berman's Phantasia Press purchased the limited rights to the book—and did a remarkable job. Featuring amazing cover art by the well-known artist Michael Whelan and a truly fine binding, this book opened the floodgates to the plethora of King limiteds to come. Berman published 725 signed and numbered editions in slipcase—these now bring over $500. He also published the well-known "asbestos Firestarter" in a signed and lettered edition of 26 copies. The asbestos edition, which was a nod to the asbestos edition of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, has sold at auction for well over $8,000. (See separate section for Limited Editions.)

In the meantime, King's original editor, Bill Thompson, became Editor-in-Chief of Everest House Publishers, a small trade house owned by Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God. Thompson contacted King to see if he might have something for Everest House; King responded with his first work of non-fiction, Danse Macabre, a staggering feat of literary criticism dealing with works of horror/dark fantasy. Everest House published Danse Macabre in 1981—it, too, jumped onto the bestseller lists. Everest also published a signed limited edition in a printing of 250 and a lettered edition of only 15 copies. Given the tiny print runs, the numbered edition now sells for over $800 and the lettered for well over $2,000.

In the next few years, Viking published Cujo (1981), Different Seasons (1982; a collection of four novellas), and Christine (1983). There was still some turmoil in King's life due once more to Doubleday.

Early in his career King had signed an agreement with Doubleday called the Author Investment Plan. In essence, the AIP was a tax dodge—Doubleday would keep the author's money, invest it, and pay him a yearly "salary." In King's case, he was receiving $50,000 per year. (Of course, King earned considerable money for the sale of movie rights and other licensing, which did not come under the aegis of the AIP.) By 1983, many millions of dollars had built up in the AIP fund, yet King was still receiving just $50,000 per year. Around 1982-83 King asked Doubleday to cancel the AIP and give him his money. Since King had not had an agent at the time he signed the agreement, he had not realized that there was no exit clause. Doubleday replied that they were under no legal obligation to liquidate the fund; however, they added, they might be persuaded to do so if King were to give them one more novel. Furious once more at his old publisher, King threatened to sue. He was talked out of legal action by his literary agent, Kirby McCauley, who suggested that King give them a novel he had finished years before and had never published: Pet Sematary.

In 1983, the same year that Viking published Different Seasons, Doubleday brought out Pet Sematary as "the novel that was too frightening for even Stephen King to publish." Even though King had never made this statement, it did the trick for Doubleday. King's previous Viking Books had sold in the 150,000-copy range in hardcover; Pet Sematary ended up selling over 500,000 copies and launched King into the rarefied atmosphere of the top-selling authors of the time.

The publication of Pet Sematary also brought a less visible project of King's to light: The Dark Tower. In 1982, King had published the first volume of his Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger, with small press Donald M. Grant. The beautifully crafted volume, with artwork by Michael Whelan, was published in a trade edition of 10,000 copies and a signed limited edition of 500. The Gunslinger was a work of science fiction as opposed to the works of horror and dark fantasy that had brought him his fame; therefore, he felt that his "regular" readers would feel cheated if he published The Gunslinger as one of his "big" books. Grant had done quite well with the book through his mail order business, but he wasn't prepared for what happened when King happened to include the book in his list of previously published works listed in Pet Sematary. I was the Doubleday publicist at the time—once the book hit the market, I was receiving almost 100 phone calls a day from readers and bookstores demanding to know what the The Gunslinger was and why they couldn't find it at their local bookstores. Donald Grant received King's permission to print another 10,000 copies of The Gunslinger to fill the demand. Today, the true first edition of The Gunslinger goes for over $1,000; the limited edition for over $2,000; and even the second printing sells for over $500.

In 1982, Stephen and Tabitha were growing weary of sending out the same old Christmas cards every year. King decided to start a serial novel that he would bind and send to friends. This became The Plant. Volume One was a beautiful chapbook with a dark green cover. This was King's first self-publishing effort through his Philtrum Press. He printed 200 numbered copies and 26 lettered, which he sent out to friends and business acquaintances at Christmas that year. In 1983 the second chapter of The Plant was sent out to the same circle of friends. In 1984 he gave The Plant a year off, publishing in its stead the limited edition of his book The Eyes of the Dragon. In 1985 he published and sent out the third and what became the final installment in The Plant. The story, which dealt with a man-eating plant sent to a publishing house, reminded King too much of The Little Shop of Horrors, and so he quit the effort. Today, the numbered editions of The Plant go for well over $1,000. A set of the three volumes in lettered state recently went for over $5,000. There are also a large number of what are called "Designer Proofs" available—these are copies of The Plant that were not signed by King. Interestingly, there seem to be more of the Designer Proofs available than there are signed editions. These unsigned copies sell for close to $1,000. Recently, King decided to revive The Plant as an Internet book. He rewrote the first three chapters to bring them up to date and has continued the series through chapters four and five. However, he's stated on his website that he will once again stop publication of The Plant after chapter six in order to concentrate on other projects.

In 1984 King again broke convention with the publication of The Talisman, coauthored with Peter Straub, author of the bestselling Ghost Story. The book was published in a joint publishing agreement with Viking and G.P. Putnam's. The book, of course, was an instant bestseller. King returned to Donald Grant for the publication of the limited edition. Grant outdid himself with the two-volume slipcased edition featuring the artwork of 10 well-known artists, including Michael Whelan, Stephen Gervais, and Tom Canty. Grant published 1,200 of these as a signed and limited edition, and another 1,200 as an unsigned trade edition. In terms of physical beauty, this limited is probably the best of King's work. The signed limited now sells for over $750; the trade edition sells for close to $200.

I'll use the limited edition of The Talisman as an example of the many variants that exist for King limited editions. (The following information is courtesy of George Beahm's Stephen King Collectibles.) Donald M. Grant issued a total of six different limited editions: 1) 30 copies reserved for the press, marked "Author's Copy"; 2) A lettered state of indeterminate number of copies designated the "artist's presentation state," signed by the authors and the book's 10 illustrators; 3) 70 numbered copies, designated the "artist's presentation state"; 4) 5 designer copies; 5) a "deluxe edition" of 1,200 copies, numbered and signed by King and Straub; 6) a "trade edition" of 1,200 copies, not numbered or signed.

The next few years brought more novels, including It (1986), Misery (1987), The Tommyknockers (1987), and The Dark Half (1989). By this point, King had stopped selling the rights for limited editions. This decision is outlined in his polemic, "On the Politics of Limited Editions," which was privately distributed to a few friends and business associates. In this ten-page document, King outlined his beliefs as to what constitutes a true limited edition. In his opinion, a limited edition is one that will never be published in any other format. He used his book The Eyes of the Dragon as an example. He stated that he planned on publishing Eyes through his own small press, Philtrum, in an edition of 1,000 signed limiteds for retail sale (numbered in black) and 250 signed limiteds (numbered in red), with the red numbers serving as his Christmas cards for that year. The black-numbered editions would be sold on a lottery basis, chosen from letters sent into his office. The price of the limited would be set by simply adding up the production costs and dividing by 1,000. Most important, however, he stated that this would be the only edition of the book ever published, making it a true limited. Most limited editions, he said, are simply high-priced merchandise, or as he termed them, "manufactured rarities."

King did publish The Eyes of the Dragon in 1984 exactly as he said he would, with one notable exception: in 1987, he allowed Viking to bring out a trade edition of the book, in a first printing of several hundred thousand copies. Though the trade edition had minor textual differences from the limited, it was still basically the same book.

Another edition worthy of note is King's story My Pretty Pony. The Whitney Museum contacted King and asked if he'd be willing to have a story illustrated by Barbara Kruger and published as part of their one-book-a-year program for Whitney contributors. King authorized the licensing of My Pretty Pony, a relatively undistinguished short story that had not yet seen print. The resulting limited edition was a massive metal-bound book with a digital clock inset into the cover. In King's words, the book was "overdesigned," but it supposedly sold out immediately, even at a retail price of $2,200. This is probably the only one of King's limiteds that now sells for less than the original retail price; they can usually be found for less than $2,000. King then licensed Knopf Publishers to do a "trade" edition of the book in an oversized format, with a maximum printing of 15,000 copies. These retailed for $50, but could be found a year later on store shelves marked down to $15. Savvy dealers combed the bookstores and picked up as many as they could. These books now sell for over $100.

(Another personal side-note—in 1996, on a whim, I called the Whitney to see if they happened to have any copies left of the limited edition. It turned out that they had 22 copies in their warehouse, which I purchased for a fraction of the retail price. The 22 books took up all the room in my car and trunk, but it taught me the important lesson to leave no stone unturned in checking out possible sources for books.)

In 1990, King found himself reunited with his original publisher, Doubleday, for the publication of The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition. King was finally going to have one of his best-loved works published in the edition he had originally intended. Doubleday, of course, was his last choice for publisher, but because they had published the original, they still owned the rights. In the intervening years, however, Doubleday had been purchased by Bertelsmann and merged with Bantam and Dell into BDD, so he was dealing with an entirely new set of faces. There were many people in the company who were doubtful that they could be successful with what was essentially a previously published book with some new material. They did not reckon with the mythology that had built up over the years about the prospect of this uncut book. In its first week of sale (at a then-hefty of $24.95 and still-hefty 1,000+ pages), The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition rocketed to #1 on The New York Times Bestseller List, where it stayed for many weeks. The book went on to sell over 800,000 copies in hardcover, a record even for King at that time.

At the same time, Doubleday also issued a limited edition of The Stand. I happened to be the editor of the book (as well as Marketing Director), so I knew something special was needed. Doubleday Design Director Marysarah Quinn came up with one of the most beautiful and imposing designs I have ever seen. The book was an oversize edition bound in black goatskin and engraved with a latticework of gilt. It came in its own two-piece black wooden box, lined with padded red satin. The title and author were engraved on a brass plate on the top of the box. Originally there were to have been 1,000 signed and numbered copies, along with 52 lettered copies (A-Z, AA-ZZ). However, after most of the limiteds had been presold, the two major chains, Walden's and Barnes & Noble, insisted that they each wanted 125 copies for their stores. King graciously agreed to sign the additional 250 tip-in signature pages, bringing the total to 1,250 numbered editions.

When I first presented the limited edition at the Doubleday sales conference, the sales reps laughed when I told them that the retail price was $325. They didn't believe that any of their bookstores would buy any book for even half that amount. As it turned out, all their bookstores wanted to buy as many copies of the limited as they could. Today, a numbered edition will bring almost $1,500; one of the 52 lettered editions will fetch nearly twice that amount.

Not all of King's limited editions have been authorized. In 1986 a small German press published King's novel It as a limited edition of 250 numbered copies; it was printed in German and titled ES. King, however, had never licensed the limited edition rights to the book—therefore, ES is a bootleg edition. It's unfortunate because the limited is a beautiful production and it was the true first edition of the book. Even though King's representatives immediately tried to quash the publication, some copies leaked out. It's a difficult book to find, and it sells for over $700. The same German press also issued an unauthorized limited of King's novella, The Mist, which originally appeared in the anthology Dark Forces. U.S. Customs officials seized these books, but again, a few made their way into the hands of collectors. This book sells for well over $1,000. King has made his displeasure known regarding collectors and dealers who buy and sell these two editions through a number of sharply worded letters published in specialty publications.

By 1993, King's books were being published by Viking in first editions of well over one million copies. Therefore, King's first editions are not difficult to find in Fine condition. Still, they can fetch amounts well over the cover prices, which is quite unusual for printings of this size.

Viking published Insomnia, another of King's massive novels, in 1994. Mark V. Ziesing Books published a limited edition that same year. What distinguished this limited edition was the fact that Ziesing also published an unsigned trade edition of the novel (called the "Gift Edition") in a quantity of 3,750, along with a signed limited edition of 1,250. This caused consternation at Viking because they had the rights to publish the trade edition. Even though the 3,750 quantity was negligible when compared to the 1.3 million published by Viking, there was a real question of who owned the license. Wasn't a "Gift Edition" the same as the trade edition? For the first time, Viking understood that the world of limited editions raised more serious issues than they had realized.

This issue came to bear two years later when King came to Viking with the idea of publishing two books simultaneously, one of them to be written under his pen name Richard Bachman. When King's authorship of the Bachman books had come to light back in 1984, he vowed never to use the name again. He stated, "Bachman had died of cancer of the pseudonym." However, he now had the idea for two books dealing with some of the same characters but written in different voices. Desperation would be one of his regular books dealing with a cast of characters caught in the clutches of an otherworldly horror. The Regulators, however, would be a very dark look at small town America and the horrors of the mass media; it would feature the same characters as those in Desperation but playing different parts.

Viking pleaded with King to consider publishing the two books separately, but the author was adamant that they should be published on the same day. Giving in, Viking then decided that their sister publisher, Dutton, would publish The Regulators and Viking would publish Desperation. At the time, I was the Marketing Director of Dutton. Given my experience with The Stand limited, Marvin Brown, the President of Penguin (Viking and Dutton's parent company) decided that Dutton would also do the limited edition and that I would coordinate the project. (The limited edition rights of Desperation were sold to Donald M. Grant, Publishers.)

Knowing that the Penguin in-house design staff had never worked on such elaborate books, I engaged the services of Joe Stefko, an amazingly talented fellow from Long Island who runs his own small press, Charnel House. His limited editions of the works of Dean Koontz, Tim Powers, and others are true works of art. (In his spare time, Joe also serves as the drummer for the rock group The Turtles—remember "Happy Together"?) Joe sketched out plans for a signed and numbered edition of 1,000 copies and a lettered edition of 26 copies. We sent the designs off to Steve King, who approved them right away.

A few months later, I called Steve in Colorado, where he was on location shooting the TV movie version of The Shining. I asked him where I should send the tip-in pages so that he could sign them. There was a momentary hesitation on the phone, then Steve replied, "How can I sign these books? The Regulators was written by Richard Bachman, and as you know, Bachman's dead." After catching my breath, I said that we had been talking about the limiteds for months now. Steve said, "I said you could do a limited edition—I never said anything about signing them."

The old saying, "What do you do with an 800-pound gorilla? Whatever he wants," ran through my mind. I called Joe in a white heat. He mentioned that a small press had done a limited edition of a Philip K. Dick book. Even though Dick had been dead for a few years, they purchased canceled checks from Dick's widow, cut out the signature, and used them as the signature. We had our solution. One of the conceits of The Regulators was that Bachman's widow, Claudia Inez Bachman, had found a number of manuscripts up in the attic, including The Regulators, several years after his death. What if, I thought, she also found a number of canceled checks? Our designers came up with a perfectly printed bank check with Bachman's name and address printed on top. I then filled out the check, payable to one of the characters in Carrie, leaving the signature blank. I sent this off to King to see if he'd go along with the joke. I received a call the next day. He said, laughing, "I guess I can't get out of this one. Go ahead and I'll sign them as Richard Bachman." Every copy of the numbered and lettered edition of The Regulators features a check pasted on the front page, signed by King as Bachman. In the end, collectors loved the idea of the checks, especially since each check was made out to a different character in King's books—therefore, each book was unique.

When the two books were published later that year, both Desperation and The Regulators went right to the top of the bestseller lists. King was now in the position where first printings of his books topped 1.5 million. Most authors, given this situation, would have sat back and rested on their laurels. King, however, immediately launched into his six-part serial novel, The Green Mile. Inspired by the Charles Dickens serial novels, King decided that he would do the same thing. In fact, the first volume of The Green Mile (published in 1996) was published before King had finished writing the sixth and final volume. The six volumes were published once a month in mass market paperback by the Signet imprint of NAL; by the time the last volume was published, all six were on The New York Times Bestseller List, causing much consternation among other publishers who felt their books were being crowded off by King's. (Desperation and The Regulators were still on the hardcover list at the time; the mass market of Rose Madder, his earlier book, was on the paperback list as well.)

In 1998, King broke away from Penguin and settled in with his new publisher, Scribner's (an imprint of Simon & Schuster). His next novel, Bag of Bones, a more literary effort, was published under a novel profit-sharing set-up in which King would forego a large up-front advance in favor of a bigger share of the profits. Bag of Bones began to garner the type of literary appreciation that King had always desired, as did his next two books, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Hearts In Atlantis.

In June of 1999, as King was walking along a small road near his summer house in Maine while reading a book, a Dodge van swerved onto the shoulder and hit him. The injuries sustained in this accident were life-threatening—his left leg was broken in nine pieces; his right leg, below the knee, was smashed so badly that doctors likened it to "marbles in a sock." After months of hospitalization and countless surgeries, King returned home and started writing once more. He finished up his second non-fiction book, On Writing, which was published in 2000 by Scribner's. He almost single-handedly launched the e-book revolution with his novella Riding the Bullet and resurrected his old Christmas card book The Plant as a self-published e-book. (This last project was done without the foreknowledge of his publisher Scribner's—this was an event that understandably sent chills down the spines of the major trade publishers and sent them scrambling to sign up their own major authors for e-books.)

One of the first things King did while in the hospital was to send his lawyer out to purchase the Dodge van that had hit him. He joked that he bought it so he could smash it with a sledgehammer once he recovered enough. Later that year, in an interview on NPR, he stated that he had bought the van and had it crushed so that it wouldn't show up on Ebay one day, billed as the "Stephen King Death Car."

Signatures

The presence of a signature in a King book can add anywhere from $100 to $250 in value, depending on the title. From the start of his career until about 1988, King was a constant presence at a number of the fantasy and science fiction conventions that take place each year. He'd gladly sit at a table and sign books for hours, as a huge line of people wended their way out the doors and onto the street. After all, these were the people who had made his dreams come true—he felt he owed them something for all their support. Gradually, however, he became aware that more and more people were getting his signature simply to resell the book. This became apparent as they began asking for flat signatures, as opposed to the personal touches he'd add with his name. (For example, when signing copies of The Shining, he usually writes "Shine On! All best, Stephen King.") Also, dealers would pull up to the table with little red wagons full of his books and demand that he flat sign them all. Finally, in the late 80s he wearied of the crowds as well as the hand cramps that would invariable accompanied his marathon signing sessions, so he swore off attending conventions and doing bookstore appearances. Not wanting to cut off all ties, however, King would allow people to send books to his office in Bangor, Maine (only two at a time), where he would sign and return them when he got a chance. Again, people (especially dealers) began to abuse his courtesy and would send ten or twenty books at once. As of three years ago, King's personal assistant declared that he would no longer sign books sent to his office.

When signing books, King made a habit of usually including the date of the signing. Therefore, those books (especially the Doubleday books) that were dated around the time of publication carry a real premium. As mentioned before, there are very few flat signed King books out there—if you come across one, make sure to compare it to a confirmed signature to verify that it's not a forgery.

This, of course, brings up the biggest caveat—with the advent of the Internet and especially Ebay, there are literally thousands of forged King signatures for sale. Stu Tinker of Betts Bookstore in Bangor, Maine estimates that more than half the signed King books currently being offered on Ebay are forgeries. Be very suspicious of any signed book offered for sale which does not feature a photo of the signature. Even so, I've seen photos of signatures on Ebay which are laughable in their clumsiness. How do you protect yourself from a skilled forger who has used King's actual signature as a guide to replicating new ones? Unfortunately, you can't. The only advice one can offer is to make sure that the seller from whom you're buying is a reputable one.

There are quite a few King books for sale that were inscribed by King to other well-known authors. After all, not every author has King's financial security and it surely becomes tempting to sell when one sees the prices his books command. Of course, the more well known the author, the higher the price.

Galleys, Proofs, and ARCs

A smaller but still significant element of King's rare book market consists of the bound galley proofs and ARCs put out by his publishers. I've sold many King items on Ebay, including quite a few proofs, and I inevitably get emails asking me what a proof is and why is it worth so much.

Here's the elementary primer I use to explain what a proof is. When book publishers prepare to publish a book, they prepare advance copies of the book and send them to reviewers, which allows the reviewer time to read and write their review so that it appears when the finished book is put on sale. These advance copies are almost always in a trade paperback format and called "bound proofs" or "bound galleys." Before computer typesetting, the galley proofs were printed from the long galleys produced by the older typesetting machines. These galleys were sent out to a printer to copy and bind galley proofs. Up through The Stand, King's bound proofs were printed by Crane Duplicating in Barnstable, MA—therefore, they were referred to as Cape Cods. These proofs were usually printed in quantities of no more than 40 or 50. Being based on the long galleys, the proofs are oblong in shape—perhaps 10" tall and 5" wide. The paper covers of these proofs were usually a variation of blue, red, or white, with the author, title, and publication information printed in black type. As noted—and this is important— proofs are prepared from the preliminary-pass pages, so many times there are textual variants between the proofs and the finished book.

Around 1980 computer typesetting came into vogue and the galley proofs lost their oblong shapes, becoming similar in size to the finished book. The quantities printed stayed the same, however.

Finally, the early 80s saw the introduction of ARCs (Advance Reading Copies). These were produced when the publisher wanted to make a big splash for a certain book. The ARCs were the same format as bound proofs prepared for reviewers but they featured full color covers with marketing information, descriptive copy, and quotes on the back cover. ARCs are prepared from the corrected proof pages, which ensures that there will be no textual variations between the ARCs and the finished book. Quantities for ARCs ranged from 1,000 to well over 5,000. In fact, Viking prepared 10,000 copies of the ARCs for King's Rose Madder for distribution to every bookstore in the U.S.

There are conflicting schools of thought in the collector community regarding the value of proofs. Some feel that the only edition worth having is the true first edition in hardcover; others believe that because the bound proof is the first appearance of the book in book form that it carries a premium value. Most King collectors fall into the latter category. Recently a standard bound galley proof of 'Salem's Lot was sold to one of the top King collectors for over $11,000. Any of the first five Doubleday King books in proof form will sell for several thousand dollars. The later Viking proofs sell for several hundred dollars, depending on the date of publication. One exception appears to be the proofs for The Green Mile. Even though the six books were published as mass market paperback originals, the bound proofs were produced in a 5" x 8" size with solid green covers. A set of all six proofs recently sold for over $1,500.

Being a King completist

The collector who is attempting to be a "completist" in regard to Stephen King is in for a long and costly journey. There are only three collectors in the world who have what can be properly called complete Stephen King collections. Here's a brief rundown as to what appears in these collections: first edition hardcovers, first edition mass market and trade paperbacks; first editions of every foreign translation; signed and numbered limited editions; signed and lettered limited editions; audiotape and audio CD first editions; video games based on King's work; U.S. and foreign appearances of King's thousands of stories and articles published in magazines and newspapers; scripts, posters, and other materials from the many Stephen King movies; catalogues offering King material; book club editions, both U.S. and foreign; books by King's wife, Tabitha. As you can imagine, there are literally tens of thousands of King items that can be a part of a completist collection. There's even a signed limited Stephen King guitar. In 1997 Taylor Guitars purchased the huge black walnut tree that was used in the film version of Cujo. They made a series of 250 guitars using wood from the tree, and each guitar features a sticker signed by King within the sound hole. You can still purchase one of these guitars on the secondary market for close to the original sales price of $3,500.

The top King collectors also have a number of original King manuscripts in their collections. Most of these were obtained through a charitable auction to which King donated handwritten and typed manuscripts of several of his short stories and articles. If one of these manuscripts ever comes onto the market again, you can expect that the price will be well into the five-figure range. King has donated most of his manuscript material to the Special Collections of the Fogler Library (at the Orono campus of the University of Maine). This collection, which includes the manuscripts of all his books, is not open to the public.

King material as investment

A collector who is considering purchasing King first editions for investment value would be well advised to reconsider. The value of King's books has stayed fairly steady for a number of years now. There was a brief flurry of high prices paid on Ebay for his books, but even that has settled down. In July of 2000 I sold on Ebay four King items (including a set of The Green Mile proofs) to one buyer for what were ridiculously high prices. I spoke to this buyer later on as we were working out the logistics of the sale. It turns out that she had no real interest in King's writing—she was simply "setting up a nest egg" for her daughter's future. This sent a chill down my spine and I told her, to no avail, that she'd do much better by putting the money in a mutual fund.

The fact is that almost all of King's first and limited editions are available as long as you can meet the price. To my mind, this takes the fun out of the search—it also makes the books more of a commodity than true collectibles.

What does King think about the huge commerce that has sprung up in his work? He's both amused and repelled by it. True, it's flattering to think that there are fans out there who will pay thousands of dollars for his books. Yet for King, books as high-priced collectibles goes against his core belief that it's the writing that matters, not the binding.

A case in point is this passage taken from an article in Twilight Zone magazine (February 1986), written by Douglas E. Winter, a well-known novelist and critic.

"Last autumn, Steve King and I were riding in his van through the back roads of Maine when the subject of collecting came up. He talked of the time that he attended a science fiction convention in Knoxville, Tennessee, and had to sign so many books that he couldn't hold a spoon when he tried to eat that night. I told my story about the $200 remainder copies of The Shining, and he recalled that the same bookseller had once approached him to sign a boxload of books 'for my friends.' Did he want inscriptions? No, thank you, just Steve King's signature.

That night, back at the house, Steve handed me a first edition of The Shining. 'Stick this on your shelf,' he said with a smile, 'as a reminder.'

Inside, it reads: 'Doug—Here's a True Fact collectors don't seem to know.—it's the same story even if you print it on shopping bags. . . .'"

The Future

Many non-King collectors express amazement at the prices commanded by King's rarer works—especially in light of the fact that his first book appeared as recently as 1974. What you would pay for the asbestos-bound lettered edition of Firestarter would buy you a pristine copy of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, which was published exactly fifty years earlier.

King's prodigious output continues unabated despite his near-fatal accident. Within the next year or so he will have one new novel (Dreamcatcher) published by Scribners. Also coming is the sequel to The Talisman, titled Black House, written with Peter Straub. He also intends to finish up his Dark Tower series of books and to complete his on-line serial novel, The Plant. Finally, the Book of the Month Club will release Secret Windows, a collection of introductions and a few short stories. (This book will not be released as a trade edition; it will only be available to BOMC members.)

King has always hungered for literary respectability. He despises the fact that most critics consign his work to the horror genre. Indeed, a number of his books (Gerald's Game (1992), Misery (1987), and Dolores Claiborne (1992), for example) feature no supernatural element whatsoever. He's also become a frequent contributor to The New Yorker magazine and has won the O'Henry Award for best short story (for "The Man in Black"). Yet at the same time, he produces more novels, collections, scripts, and other material than almost any other published writer in the last twenty-five years. In a recent interview he referred to himself as the "literary equivalent of a Big Mac."

Publishing history is filled with popular authors who were tremendous bestsellers of their time, yet whose works have no collectible value within a few years after their final book. One example is Irving Wallace—his novels almost all reached the top rungs of the bestseller lists as recently as the 1970s, yet today his signed first editions sell for well under $100.

Will the Stephen King collector's market fall apart as well after he stops writing? I think at that point we'll see a real decline in prices for many of King's later novels, which have been published in large print runs, as well as some of the later limited editions and much of the merchandise. However, the gems of his corpus, including the early novels like The Shining, 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and The Dead Zone, will continue to maintain their values, especially if signed. A first-rate basic King collection will include first U.S. hardcover editions of all his books (which as of this writing stands at 54 titles) and the limited editions of his major works (there are 18 of these at present, not counting the variations—numbered and lettered—in the editions). Proofs (including bound galleys and advance reading copies) would be a good (and costly) additional element to this core collection.

As any avid book collector knows, however, it's hard to stop expanding one's collection. And with King's enormous body of work, one could spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars adding all of his various appearances in print and other media. Even the top three King collectors still are on the lookout for various items on their want lists. (Anyone have a copy of the 1982 Doubleday trade paperback The Do-It-Yourself Bestseller by Tom Silberkleit and Jerry Biederman, which features the beginning and the end of a King story titled "Skybar?" This title is the one missing piece from a top collector's King shelves.)

I'll end this article as I began it—with a passage from my 1983 article in AB Bookman's Weekly:

"The value of books is determined by more than limited print runs and deluxe bindings. There must exist that certain power in the author's words, that ability to reach out and grab the reader where he lives, in order to command the excitement that King does. It is in reaction to this power—in fact, almost in an attempt to 'get a piece' of King himself or whatever it is he has—that the collectors vie for the right to own as much of his work as possible."

Resources

There are almost as many books about King and his work as there are books written by the man himself. Here are the two stand-outs:

Stephen King Collectibles, by George Beahm (GB Books, 2000). This is the single best book available on the subject of "collecting" Stephen King. George Beahm, who's written a number of books about King in the past, has put together an annotated price guide which covers all of King's books as well as the huge range of other King material that is available. The book is also profusely illustrated with photos of many of the very rare King items, such as the asbestos limited edition of Firestarter and the original copies of The Plant. If you have any interest at all in collecting Stephen King, this is the book to get. To my knowledge, it is only distributed through Betts Bookstore, 584 Hammond Street, Bangor, ME 04401; phone: 207-947-7052; website: www.bettsbooks.com.

The Lost Work of Stephen King, by Stephen J. Spignesi (Birch Lane Press, 1998). Spignesi is the author of the mammoth Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia, which features over 750,000 words about King. The Lost Work is a guide to the many King rarities, unpublished manuscripts, alternative versions, and oddities. It also includes a rough guide to prices. This title should be available in most major chain bookstores.

And finally, the single best place to visit (either in-person or virtually) in search of King editions is Betts Bookstore, run by Stu and Penney Tinker. The store is in the heart of King's hometown of Bangor, Maine; you can also view Stu's huge inventory of rare/signed/limited editions of King titles via his website at: www.bettsbooks.com. This is the place to start any search for anything to do with Stephen King. Stu is one of the top authorities in this field and will get you started with your collection.