“It’s an oral kind of story that should be listened to,” he said.

The arrival of “Drunken Fireworks” as a stand-alone work of audio is the latest sign that audiobooks, which were once little more than an afterthought for writers and publishers, are evolving into a vibrant and independent art form.

Digital audiobooks have become one of the fastest growing categories in publishing, bolstered by the growing use of smartphones. Revenue and unit sales for downloaded audio grew around 27 percent in 2014 compared with the previous year, easily outpacing e-books and print, a recent report from the Association of American Publishers showed. Production is up, too. Audiobook publishers released some 25,000 titles in 2013, compared with 3,430 in 2004, according to the Audio Publishers Association.

Brand-name authors like Mr. King are paying more attention to the form, and some have started catering to listeners as much as readers. Last year, the best-selling thriller writer Jeffery Deaver released an original, multicast audio drama, “The Starling Project,” with Audible.com. The science fiction writer John Scalzi will release a original audio piece with Audible later this year. And Mr. King’s son, the horror writer Joe Hill, will release an audio drama based on his graphic novel series, “Locke & Key,” with Audible in October.

With “Drunken Fireworks,” which costs $15 as a CD and $10 for the digital version, Mr. King and his publisher are testing whether audio can serve as an effective teaser for a future print book.

Mr. King decided to create a stand-alone audiobook out of the 12,200-word short story last year, when he was shopping in a discount chain store and saw a CD by the register that was narrated by his old friend and fellow Maine resident Tim Sample. He knew Mr. Sample, an author and comedian, could capture the necessary nuances of the Maine accent in “Drunken Fireworks,” and help anchor the story geographically with regionalisms like “rud” for “road” and “pitcher” for “picture.” Mr. Sample was game, and narrated the story in a flawless Yankee accent.

“The biggest mistake people make is they slip into a Southern drawl, when it’s closer to the British Isles,” said Mr. Sample, whose voice mail message says “have a wicked good day.” “There’s a kind of lumpy rhythm to the language, and it’s very nasal, way up in the nose.”