They don't have to start for the first time. Who's going to publish the next Stephen King book when he's old, since someone can just take it and republish it without paying a dime right when he dies?

That's a pretty classic calculation, yeah?

Stephen King books are bestsellers, generally, even if only for a few years. Especially when distributed digitally, it becomes no great burden to make hay for the final years of the author's life.

I was addressing the claim that no publisher would touch an old novelist because they might die--that makes no sense in the case of established, well-selling authors, and makes no difference in the case of most first-time geriatric novelists.

Hmm, I'm not sure I understand your argument. If I'm a publisher, I wouldn't want to pay King millions for the rights to his latest novel when someone can come out tomorrow, republish it (legally) for free and make that investment vanish.

I think the point is that Kings book would probably pay for itself very quickly, so the risk of him dying before that might not be so bad.