Horror genius Stephen King is preparing to release his sixth short story collection titled "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams" in November this year. The book will feature 20 original stories penned by the author. Ahead of its publication, King decided to release one handpicked tale as an audiobook.

According to Entertainment Weekly, King has chosen to release a standalone audiobook called "Drunken Fireworks" yesterday. It is the story of a party animal named Alden McCausland, who went to prison for his involvement in a great fireworks display turned bad on the Fourth of July.

The protagonist, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette details, lives with his mother, who is a heavy drinker like him, in an old cabin on Lake Abenaki in Maine. The pair makes enemies out of a rich family that lives across the lake and starts to outshine the two's small fireworks show, which resulted to rivalry, police sirens and arrests.

"Drunken Fireworks" is only available as an audiobook, which NewsOK said, was narrated by Tim Sample, who happens to be the writer's old friend and neighbor in Maine. Many would recognize Sample as a humorist and former television personality.

The standalone audiobook can now be digitally downloaded for US$10, and it can also be purchased as a CD, which charges US$5 more. Simon & Schuster Audio published the audiobook. The same publisher will handle the distribution of "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams," Broadway World wrote.

According to New York Times, "Drunken Fireworks" is King's attempt to know if his fans would want to sink their teeth into an audio version of his stories as much as they did on his printed ones.

Also, it is the acclaimed author's a way of knowing whether or not the story has the potential of becoming a spoken sensation, which he believe can happen, describing the masterwork as an "oral kind of story that should be listened to."

"Every now and then, the discussion will come up, 'Are audiobooks as good as books in print?' and the answer to me is a no-brainer," King said to the aforementioned site. "Yes, they are, and they might even be better," he professed.

New York Times says that more and more writers are dipping their toes into the world of spoken stories. Downloads of such digital narratives have swelled up to 27 percent last year as compared to that of 2013. This is, for the most part, as New York Times pointed out, due to the popularity of smartphones, which made digital audiobook reading more portable.