Has anyone read the book?

I read it quite nsome time ago and it is better than the movie, but then, most novels that have movies based on them tend to be.
John Holobrook Vance has a parallel carreer as Science FIction writer Jack Vance. In his book, "the Book of Dreams" he deals with a character very much like Ronald although in a very different setting.

If anyone is still looking for the book, try eBay. You'll often find a used copy in hardcover or paperback. If they don't have it on the day you look, keep checking back and eventually you'll find it.

you've got to be kidding me, the book is as hard to get as the movie?

I have a paperback copy of the novel that Jack Vance wrote under his real name John Holbrook Vance. The book is very different. Ronald rapes and murders two of the three daughters. The first girl he kills is by accident in the TV movie, but Ronald rapes and kills her, too. He is not nearly as sympathetic as the Scott Jacoby portrayal.

Edition Andreas Irle reprints Vance novels very difficult to find otherwise, but I think they need a minimum number of subscribers for the print run to pay for itself:

http://editionandreasirle.com/

People interested in a reprint of Bad Ronald could contact them through email; if enought people show interest maybe they would decide to reprint the novel.

I have a copy, in reissued specialty hardback edition. The comments below give pretty detailed information about the differences with the TV movie. Anyone wants to pay $200 for it, I'll sell it to them. But I don't think it's really all that hard to find. The Vance Integral Edition has it, and major city libraries are acquiring that, so it should be possible to find it if all you're interested in is reading it.

SPOILERS ABOUT BOOK BELOW:
I am not usually one who automatically says "the book was better," but in this case it was! First of all, Ronald really was bad in the book. He raped the first girl, Carol Matthews, and killed her because she was going to tell. And then when the Woods family moved in, he kidnapped Babs first and hid her in the lair. Then he repeatedly raped her and tortured her. He killed her when she tried to escape. Then...he did the same thing to the middle girl, Althea.
In the movie, they were a little sympathetic to Ronald, and made the first death almost end up where you almost feel sorry for Ronald.
The movie almost made him seem delusional, where he drifts into madness and his Atranta world, like a mental illness you could feel sorry for. The book mentions Atranta and Ronald's creating this work, but it's not like Atranta was the driving force. Ronald was bad in the book, and it wasn't a mental illness. The book has Duane Matthews as more of a hero, figuring out clues before the cops do, and leading the plan to discover and capture Ronald.
And I don't know about finding an actual copy of THE Bad Ronald book, but I got it as part of a compilation. There are 5 separate novels by Vance all in one book:
http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Ways-Jack-Vance/dp/1596063599/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335450676&sr=1-6

The author just died recently, at the age of 96.

Currently, the book can be ordered on Amazon for a Kindle at a fair price-but not everyone has (or wants) one of those. The cheapest in paperback right now is $50.

A used copy of the DVD is $10, which is what I got.