It kind of feels like Trek fans get gouged.

[Sci]

You're not being price gouged. Star Trek novels are minor luxury items and are very reasonably priced compared to other entertainment items or services that give you far fewer hours of enjoyment per dollar, and you can easily and legally obtain a Star Trek novel free of cost just by asking your local library to stock them.

 

[Stephen!]

We already have to pay for a streaming service no one wants if we want to see the show and now the novel is $11.00 for the paperback and even more ($11.99) for the Kindle version? Trek has been fallow for a long time on TV. This is not the way to encourage people to come back or become new fans.

Your prices are cheaper than what you'd pay in the UK.

 

[tomswift2002]

It doesn't really. The list price for the trade paperback is actually $16; Amazon has it marked down to $11. The eBook is being sold at its full price of $11.99. So the eBook actually costs 3/4 as much as the TPB, all else being equal.

Up here in Canada the MSRP is $22 for the book, and Chapters has it marked down to $19.58 right now. But the ebook is $11.99.

But with ebooks, just like with any physical book, there is also probably some mark-up in the price that allows for the book seller to get a cut of the sale from the book as well.

 

[Quimby]

I did not realize it was a trade PB which does change the math a little and I meant no offense but with things like the streaming and as someone else mentioned the ridiculous MSRPs of the home video releases it feels like they want to squeeze every drop they can out of the fandom.

 

[E-DUB]

"It's a larger-format trade paperback, a prestige format," Does this phrase mean that it's a standard size trade paperback, or that it's in that "new" size that's taller than a regular paperback but no wider? I hate those.

 

[Christopher]

"It's a larger-format trade paperback, a prestige format," Does this phrase mean that it's a standard size trade paperback, or that it's in that "new" size that's taller than a regular paperback but no wider? I hate those.

I think it's a bit bigger (in height and width, not page count) than the '90s Starfleet Academy YA books and a bit smaller than the Kelvin-timeline Starfleet Academy YA books.

 

[David Mack]

The specs on Amazon indicate the trade paperback of Desperate Hours will be 5 inches wide by 7.8 inches tall. So a bit wider and taller than your usual paperback, but not huge.

 

[tomswift2002]

Anyone remember when Trek novelizations came out in hardcover? Aside from Star Trek Nemesis, the last episode novelization was Shockwave in 2002 (although The Expanse novelization mentioned on its copyright page that it had been prepared as a hardcover before being downgraded to a Trade Paperback). Its surprising that with Discovery, Pocket isn't doing a hardcover (even just a PC hardcover).

 

[Therin of Andor]

Happy to support new Trek at any price. Esp. new Trek by David Mack.

 

[Reanok]

I definitely like trade paperbacks having bigger print it makes the books easier to read than the regular sized Star trek books with the small print in alot of the books.

 

[Sophie74656]

I never understood why Kindle books are priced basically the same. They don't have to print them.

 

[Jinn]

I never understood why Kindle books are priced basically the same. They don't have to print them.

I'm pretty sure that some of the authors here have said that the printing and/or the physical manifacturing of books isn't the most expensive part of the process.

 

[Christopher]

I'm pretty sure that some of the authors here have said that the printing and/or the physical manifacturing of books isn't the most expensive part of the process.

Right. With thousands or tens of thousands of units being printed, the cost of printing, shipping, etc. is mere pennies per copy. Most of what you're paying for is the work done by the writer, editor, copyeditors, proofreaders, cover designer, cover artist, typesetters, sales and marketing staff, etc., and that's exactly the same for an e-book as it is for a print book.

Really, it's surprising to me that the question even needs to be asked. When you buy a book, you're not buying it for the paper, any more than you buy a box of cereal for the cardboard. That's just the delivery system. It's the contents, the ideas in the book, that are the valuable part.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm no expert on ebooks, but, yes, when I'm crunching the numbers on a prospective book project for Tor, I'm going to be concentrating on the licensing fees, author advances, royalty rates, subsidiary rights, territories, and so on, as opposed to the PP&B (paper, printing & binding) costs, which are only really an issue if you're talking about some two-thousand-page doorstop.

And as ebooks expand to be become a bigger part of the market, they're going to be expected to carry their weight when it comes to paying for the advances, salaries, overhead, and so on, instead of getting a free ride off the print edition. The cover price pays for the content, not the paper and ink.

 

[Christopher]

It's like how you can buy a stack of a hundred blank DVD-Rs for less than the price of a single movie on DVD. You're paying for the data, not the substrate.

 

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, in all my years of publishing, I can only recall one instance where the PP&B costs caused some concern. It was a thousand-plus-page doorstop by a relatively unknown author and there was some debate as to whether we should raise the cover price because of the size of the book, or whether it would be better to split the book into two or three volumes instead. This was back before ebooks, so that wasn't a consideration.

(In the end, Tor passed on the project, which was later published in two volumes by another company.)

 

[DrCorby]

Happy to support new Trek at any price. Esp. new Trek by David Mack.

What I'm excited about isn't just that it's a new Star Trek book. It's that it's also a brand new story, not just a novelization of the series premiere, which is what we got for the last few series. (Not that I still didn't buy and enjoy those novelizations...) AND, on top of that, it's a brand new story by David Mack! Double plus good!!

 

[The Wormhole]

Anyone remember when Trek novelizations came out in hardcover? Aside from Star Trek Nemesis, the last episode novelization was Shockwave in 2002 (although The Expanse novelization mentioned on its copyright page that it had been prepared as a hardcover before being downgraded to a Trade Paperback). Its surprising that with Discovery, Pocket isn't doing a hardcover (even just a PC hardcover).

Why are you discussing novelizations while bringing up the Discovery novel? David Mack's Discovery novel is an original novel, not a novelization.

Although, it should be noted that some parts of the world the novelizations for the Abrams movies were released as hardcovers.

 

[Christopher]

Why are you discussing novelizations while bringing up the Discovery novel? David Mack's Discovery novel is an original novel, not a novelization.

I think the point is to compare them as promotional tie-ins to a new movie or series. In the past, tie-ins that came out simultaneously with new shows or films would only have been novelizations, since there wouldn't have been this kind of close coordination allowing an original novel to be done ahead of time. So in terms of when they're released and the role they play promotionally, the novelizations are a good comparison. After all, we're talking about format and pricing here, not story content.

 

[Hey Missy]

I miss when "event" Trek novels came out in hardcover (usually with beautiful or eye-catching covers), giving them "shelf presence"