Most decisions about ebook availability come down to disagreements with publishers or lawsuits. Novelist Stephen King is deciding to keep his upcoming novel “Joyland” away from the digital ream for a different reason: the aesthetics and nostalgia of the physical medium.

The book - about a student who must face a murder while working at a carnival in 1973 - is being published by Hard Case Crime, a smaller imprint known for its stylistic throwbacks to the pulp novels of the 1940's. "I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts," King said in a statement. "I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we're going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. “Joyland” will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book."

King followed a similar strategy with his last collaboration with Hard Case, “The Colorado Kid”, which was physically published only as a paperback.

King himself has been a leading pioneer of ebooks in general, however. He initially entered the field way back in 2000 with “Riding the Bullet”, a novella that was published as an exclusively-digital title, available for computers and PDAs like the Palm V. Additional experiments such as “The Plant” followed, along with “Ur”, a book about an otherworldly e-reader that was a Kindle Store exclusive at first.