At 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning, Stephen King fans will line up to buy the author's latest novella -- online.

In a move suggesting that e-books are penetrating the mainstream market, King will be the first major best-selling author to release a book exclusively in electronic format.

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Publishers hope the milestone will bring exposure to the e-book industry.

"This has brought huge visibility to the whole category," said SoftBook spokesman Tom Morrow. "The announcement has been a lightning rod in the marketplace."

"This brings a whole new level of attention to a fledgling industry that hasn't been there before," agreed Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster. "This brings a whole new hope that [e-books] will move from the realm of novelty into the mainstream."

King's book, Riding the Bullet, will be available in electronic format on 14 March for download on e-book devices, Palm PDAs, or on a PC. Barnes & Noble will offer free downloads on the day of the release on its Web site.

Riding the Bullet, described by King as "a ghost story in the grand manner," will bypass the traditional year-long publishing cycle to go directly to readers, who will pay $2.50 to download the 16,000-word story (equivalent to about 33 printed pages).

"I'm curious to see what sort of response there is and whether or not this is the future," King said in a statement.

King, who wrote Riding the Bullet following his near-fatal van accident in June 1999, has pioneered efforts to experiment with new publishing formats. He published a short-story collection, Blood and Smoke, exclusively in audio book format last year.

"It certainly helps to have an author of King's level to be involved," Rothberg said. "He's always done things that have tested the limits of publishing."

The title has generated enthusiastic response among avid e-book readers so far.

The Simon & Schuster Web site was overloaded with traffic Monday as viewers tried to access the excerpt.

"We've seen a doubling of traffic in response to the announcement," said SoftBook's Morrow.