The electronic book reader reaches adolescence next month when Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" will be published simultaneously in print and download format.

The release day is Sept. 15. The publisher Doubleday said the first press run is 5 million books priced at $29.95. The e-book version is considerably less; Amazon's Kindle version and the Sony Reader offering are $9.99.

Mainline publishers have resisted simultaneous release of major books, preferring to watch how the print edition does before going digital with it, much like movie studios wait until a popular film is no longer in first run to release it on DVD.

The Doubleday move breaks with that tradition. The publisher clearly expects this sequel to "The Da Vinci Code" to be an immediate best-seller in print, a title that could have the amazing longevity of its predecessor on the lists, so it's decided to tap into the e-book reader market right off the bat.

Brown's new book, appearing six years after his inexplicable blockbuster, couldn't come at a better time for the publishing business, reeling like most American industries from the economic decline.

Book sales collapsed at the beginning of the year, causing worries that more independent sellers and even the big chain, Borders, might go out of business. But, like much of the economy, sales are rebounding, reports the Association of American Publishers.

Total June sales, the latest figures from the AAP, rose 21.5 percent from May, with adult trade books -- Brown's market -- up 12.6 percent. Despite the increases, sales of those titles were down 17.8 percent for the year.

The same magic that the "Harry Potter" books worked on the children's market -- huge sales numbers -- will be invoked by "The Lost Symbol" on the market for adults.

Very little is known about Brown's latest project; advance copies were not available, at least to most of the media, although I assume The New York Times' review will run Sept. 13 or 14.

The rest of us will be awaiting for the overnight delivery truck to appear Sept. 15 or later with its precious cargo, so it's impossible to anticipate how good "The Lost Symbol" will be.

We can speculate, though.

No critic ever confused Brown with Hemingway as a stylist. Instead, he lucked into writing about an area of religious mythology that struck a nerve in the America of 2003, a nation that was scourging the infidel in Iraq while on edge from the real or phony (says Tom Ridge) "warnings" from a government and its faith-based initiatives.

Brown's suggestion that descendants of Jesus, looking a lot like the character in the film "Amelie," were alive, also tickled readers' imaginations, even though his book was considered sacrilegious by many Roman Catholics, especially those in Opus Dei.

After six hard years, the country's readers are liable to be more skeptical of shadowy conspiracy fantasies from the past -- Brown's specialty -- and more in the mood for light, humorous stories.

"The Lost Symbol" will be a publishing event, regardless, briefly overshadowing the release of novels next month from more accomplished writers.

Fighting the Brown shadow will be:

Richard Powers ("Generosity: An Enhancement"), Kazuo Ishiguro ("Nocturnes"), E.L. Doctorow ("Homer and Langley"), Margaret Atwood ("The Year of the Flood"), Lorrie Moore ("A Gate at the Stairs"), Pete Dexter ("Spooner") and, the most unfortunate of all, Joyce Carol Oates, whose 36th novel, "Little Bird of Heaven," appears Sept. 15 as well.

(Where it takes the plodding Brown six years to write a book, Oates turns them around in a year, sometimes twice a year.)

Back to the e-reader's coming of age. While Amazon's Kindle will benefit the most from the Brown download, Sony plans to release a device that offers the same feature -- built-in free wireless download function with access to newspaper subscriptions. The current Sony readers must be hooked into a computer to buy books online.

Called the Daily Edition, this device is $399 and will be available in December. Sony is also widening its access to book sources.