Associated Press

Getting a copy of Stephen King's new ghost story is proving to be a nightmare.

Riding the Bullet is available only on the Internet and was made available at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Web sites including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com were swamped by high demand for the horror master's 66-page work, and downloading it was downright impossible.

''All the servers have reached 100% capacity and gone over several times today,'' said Pat Eisemann, a spokeswoman for Scribner, co-publisher with King's Philtrum Press. ''Everybody is pretty much crashing and you can't get through.''

The story went online at several book-related Web sites at a cost of $2.50, although Barnes & Noble made it available for free on Tuesday and Amazon has no plans to charge for the download at all, according to company spokeswoman Kristin Schaefer.

An Associated Press reporter began trying to download Riding the Bullet via Barnes & Noble and Amazon at 10 a.m. and had not succeeded by 5 p.m.

King wrote the story while recuperating from serious injuries he sustained when he was hit by a van last June.

While many books are available on the Internet, few prominent writers have chosen to publish online only.

''Stephen King's decision to publish his new short story in electronic format is a concrete declaration that the e-book format has arrived,'' said Steve Riggio, vice chairman of Barnes & Noble.com. ''We see a time in the not too distant future when virtually every book in print will be available in both physical and electronic formats.''

King was more cautious.

''While I think that the Internet and various computer applications for stories have great promise, I don't think anything will replace the printed word and the bound book,'' he said in a statement.