"New Frontier: The Returned" released as a physical book?

Has there been any news concerning if New Frontier: The Returned will be released as a physical book? I have no interest in reading it as an eBook, nor am I interested in another debate about why I don't like eBooks. I'm merely curious to know if there has been any news on this front. Does anyone know if the eBook releases were well received on a sales level?

 

I know exactly how you feel. I've stopped asking questions like this, because the only reply I get is that I should simply start reading e-books then. No intention of doing so, since I simply don't like the format. So I'm really hoping that at some point, Pockets will do some sort of anthology thingie with two or three e-books together in a hardcopy.

 

There hasn't been any news like that, no.

 

No, there has been no readily available news concerning the prospect of releasing these novels in physical form.

Unless one of the authors is aware and fills us in, I seriously doubt anyone here would be privy to sales information.

 

Honestly, since none of the other e-books have gotten physical releases I doubt The Returned will. I think it actually did start as a paperback, and I have a feeling if Pocket had any interest in ever releasing it that way they probably would have then.

 

Yeah, they've been sitting on ebook material for the better part of the last, what, five, six years? I don't think there've been any physical releases of ebook material since the nuTrek books got abruptly pulled and a hole made in the schedule that they only had time to fill with already written material. The CoE series has eight other stories that haven't been released, the Slings and Arrows miniseries still hasn't seen the light of day on the physical page... Releasing ebooks in physical releases seems like, since the production line has gone from two books a year to one, to be less of a priority. Probably more of a pure business decision, that releasing new books physically over reprinting older stories seems like a more profitable arrangement, than anything else, but still. I'd like to see at least an occasional release of these stories in a physical medium.

 

I have a feeling e-books are also probably a lot more popular now than when they were first doing the SCE novellas. Maybe they're happy enough with the money they bring in as e-books that they don't feel a second version is necessary?

 

Well, that's kind of a given wouldn't you think, e-books got popular when there weren't any Trek ones were being sold. hence the reintroduction of them and subsequent expansion of the range over the past few years.

 

I think that sentence was meant to be a tad tongue-in-cheek.

 

Only JD can say so, but taken into account his posting style and the context of the following sentence I omitted, I doubt it very much.

 

I meant it with all seriousness. All I was saying is that they probably did the physical releases before because they wanted to bring in more money than were getting with just the e-books. Now e-books alone probably bring in enough money that they are content with just the one release.

 

Hmm. Given that e-books are not tangible physical objects, exist only so long as the device on which they reside continues to exist, and so long as the publisher chooses to keep them, and the records of who purchased them, on their servers, e-books are the publishing industry's dream . . .

. . . and the printing industry's nightmare.
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I'm with Samuel T. Cogley on the matter.

 

Paper books can cease to exist too. They're not indestructible. Heck, even stone carvings erode. All information is impermanent unless preserved or copied.

 

Also, come on, James; you know there's no fair way to respond to you given that the OP specifically asked not to start a debate in favor of ebooks. You're really going to specifically make an argument about why ebooks are awful in a situation where no one can respond to you without being rude to the OP? That's just rude yourself to the other posters in the thread. Nothing in your post is even relevant to anything that anyone else has said, given that everyone else stayed away from format debate specifically at their request; you're just looking to pick a fight.

 

Yes - let's stay off the e-book vs paper discussion please, and just stick to whether The Returned will be republished in paper form.

 

On one hand, I'd like a hard copy of the Returned to complete the New Frontier section of my book shelf, but OTOH, the final eNovella left such a bad taste in my brain that I'd almost prefer not to lay down anymore money for a paperback edition of it.

 

^That is the only reason I could maybe, maybe see it being released as a paperbook. It is the only NF book that wasn't released as a physical book, but if that was a concern for Pocket they probably would have finished releasing the CoE novellas physically too.

 

Good point.

 

I think I would rather move on with a new book that was a fresh start away from all the outstanding plot threads Peter David dealt with in the Returned with various levels of success.

I would like a new book with a time jump to meet the post-Fall continuity. A complete jumping on point with the time jump used to reintroduce the cast.

 

I honestly don't think PAD is interested enough in Treklit continuity to care about meeting it. New Frontier (and PAD's stuff in general), with a few exceptions, has always been kind of unidirectional in how it met Treklit; Treklit would reference it, but it would only rarely reference Treklit. Even in Before Dishonor, the book that killed off Janeway in Treklit, I think it actually referenced Vendetta more than it referenced the general Treklit continuity at the time. I think the strongest he's ever connected his works was in specific crossover stuff like Double Helix or Gateways where that was the entire point of it.

Not meant as a criticism towards him or anything, it just feels like that's the style PAD prefers.