Why are the novels less popular than the episodes/movies?

[The Keeper]

KingDaniel wrote:

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From what I've read here, it appears that the novels are bought and read by a meagre 2% of the Star Trek fanbase.

This may be a somewhat naive question, but why so small a percentage? Is there some stigma surrounding tie-in books? Is it that they're non-canon? Or is it that people simply don't like to read as much as they like to watch TV?

IMO the books have a hit/miss ratio at least as good as the episodes, so I can't believe it's their quality that's the reason.

"Not Canon" is the number one response to almost anything stated regarding Trek in print. Pushed for a legitimate reason why, I have heard them claim; "It could be contradicted by new canon", but they'll fall silent, or become violent, when you point out that Trek series are canonically "finished" so little chance of that exists for stories written after closure.

[Starbreaker]

It seriously still happens to me.. followed by "I've never read a book all the way through" or "I only read one book in high school." It's gotten better lately thanks to Happy Potter, Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray, etc. I see a lot more people reading, even if it is all the same book.

[Christopher]

Shape-Shifter wrote:

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"Not Canon" is the number one response to almost anything stated regarding Trek in print. Pushed for a legitimate reason why, I have heard them claim; "It could be contradicted by new canon", but they'll fall silent, or become violent, when you point out that Trek series are canonically "finished" so little chance of that exists for stories written after closure.

It's hard for me to understand that attitude. I mean, I've just finished a (not complete) watch-through of the Godzilla film franchise, which has deliberately rebooted its universe more than once, and whose 1999-2004 series intentionally set each film (with one exception) in a different continuity, so that there are seven different, incompatible official Godzilla universes. There are other franchises that also encompass multiple canonical continuities, like Digimon and Transformers, not to mention something like DC Comics which reboots its continuity something like once a decade on average. With so many other fictional franchises in which multiple or mutable continuities are standard practice, not just in adaptations but in core canon itself, it puzzles me that so many Trek fans react so vehemently to the idea. I mean, whatever happened to infinite diversity?

[teacake]

My reading of books, any books has declined by at least 90% since the advent of the internet. Pretty much the only books I read now are connected to fan interests. The Passing of the Technomages was one of the greatest things I've ever read (have you read those yet KingDaniel??)

And yet I spent my adolescence and twenties systematically working my way through the classics in a completist manner. I read continuously.

The internet has rewired my brain.

I'm trying to get back into reading more though. I did manage the whole Game of Thrones series before seeing the show and a few other fantasy novels this year (filling in my Treklit boycott time, LOLOL). If you told me twenty years ago that I would replace reading great books with reading great internet I would have laughed.

[beamMe]

Christopher wrote:

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With so many other fictional franchises in which multiple or mutable continuities are standard practice, not just in adaptations but in core canon itself, it puzzles me that so many Trek fans react so vehemently to the idea.

I don't understand it myself. But it's really no wonder that Trek-fans are sometimes viewed as religious cultist (that Futurama-episode comes to mind).

Perhaps it comes down to a lack of imagination.
I have no problem with on-screen Trek being the "official" canon, but I do like that the books offer different interpretations or points of view... okay this too sounds like Bible-interpretation.

[Therin of Andor]

Brit wrote:

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Most of us that read do so because we found the right books for us at the right time.

Totally agree. (Teacher-librarian here!)

[Therin of Andor]

cb31 wrote:

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I agree...the only time I remember liking something I read in an English class was the one section we did on Poe! The rest of it was so-called classics that you needed to be older than my parents to really enjoy reading!

If we had to read classic literature why couldn't it have been Edgar Rice Burroughs or H.G. Wells?!

I was educated in the 60s and 70s and highlights of my high school studies included "Around the World in 80 Days", "The Black Cloud" (loved it!; my first experience with science fiction), "Watership Down", "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings", "The Caine Mutiny", "Sons and Lovers" and the bizarre black comedy, "Our Gang (Starring Tricky Dick and his Friends)".

I think we did "Catcher in the Rye" as well. My class missed out on "To Kill a Mockingbird", but I recently had to read it for a writing course, and loved it.

I enjoyed all of these. I guess what killed off some of the pleasure was the analysis and essay writing that had to follow each one.

[dodge]

Shape-Shifter wrote:

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"Not Canon" is the number one response to almost anything stated regarding Trek in print.

Doubt they'd become more popular if they were canon.

Other TV, Film or even video game universes have books that are considered canon but are still not read by a significantly larger percentage of the fanbase.

[Therin of Andor]

dodge wrote:

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Doubt they'd become more popular if they were canon.

Correct. Long before Richard Arnold started promoting the term - in an attempt to stop people asking Gene Roddenberry at conventions why the Star Trek movies and TNG were seemingly ignoring adding Franz Joseph-designed starships and not referring to events from novels - fans were finding excuses not to explore the novels and comics. Some fans simply want to watch Star Trek, not read about it. Or pay for it.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The single year sales figures for 99 percent of the most famous and well-regarded science fiction novels of the last eighty years wouldn't justify producing a teen drama on the CW if the TV people believed that those numbers represented the full potential of the property. That's not an issue of quality - after all, TV series based on skiffy novels are greenlit - it's a matter of the difference in the markets and media. The producers and distributors of such shows believe that the source material is appealing enough to attract a sufficient audience if people are exposed to it.

[Steve Mollmann]

Lance Parkin has an interesting article in Time And Relative Dissertations In Space where he argues that "canon" is a justification for financially investing/not financially investing in product more than anything else. Writing things off as "not canon" is an easy way to say that you just don't want to spend money on them, but it's an excuse, not a reason.

[Therin of Andor]

Steve Mollmann wrote:

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Writing things off as "not canon" is an easy way to say that you just don't want to spend money on them, but it's an excuse, not a reason.

Exactly. That's been my experience with ST fans since early 1980. At the very most, telling many fans about a great ST novel was most likely to result in them saying, "Well, if it's that good you should lend it to me."

And that's precisely why I had to buy a replacement mint copy of the ST III novelization. By the time I got the first one back, it resembled a damp rag.

[Patrick O'Brien]

Have Jim Parsons read a Trek novel on an episode of the Big Bang Theory, and watch the Trek book sales skyrocket

[beamMe]

Steve Mollmann wrote:

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Writing things off as "not canon" is an easy way to say that you just don't want to spend money on them,

Yes. And?

Steve Mollmann wrote:

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but it's an excuse, not a reason.

No, it's a reason. Their reason for not spending money on things their aren't really interested in.
I don't see why you'd see it as an excuse.

[Greg Cox]

Patrick O'Brien wrote:

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Have Jim Parsons read a Trek novel on an episode of the Big Bang Theory, and watch the Trek book sales skyrocket

The burning question: have sales for Green Lantern tee-shirts gone through the roof yet?