2018 Releases

[DimesDan]

And I wonder how much taxpayers money is used doing it when only a small minority actually speak Welsh.

I have no idea, nor do I care because, well, one, they pay council tax too and if you really want to find out, I'm sure you could make a FOI inquiry or Google it. - Although giving it a tiny amount of thought, I wouldn't be surprised if Brussels pays a percentage of that right now.

 

[trampledamage]

Books, people... books... or lack thereof, I guess...

 

[dstyer]

Does anyone know if "the contract" would specify a minimum or maximum of novels allowed per calendar or fiscal year? Would S&S possibly be obligated to produce a certain number of 2018 novels or just publish whatever they can get done?

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Based on the discussion, it sounds to me like it's a contract of a specified period of time, and not some amount of books. So any book contracted during the time of the liscence contract is expected to be published, but anything beyond that is up in the air, with the liscencing contract being the one other contracts are dependent on. And there can be as many books in that timeframe as S&S deems will be profitable.

I mean since the contract at one point allowed two novels per month, I really don't think there's a set limit of 'publish X amount of books within a given time frame.'

 

[The Gatekeeper]

Would S&S possibly be obligated to produce a certain number of 2018 novels or just publish whatever they can get done?

Extremely doubtful. If anything, expect to go until summer (at the earliest) before we see any new novels. If that means there's only five or six novels this year, than there will only be five or six. The only unknown factor here would be if there's going to be another Discovery novel at some point later in the year. That's probably the only chance of anything more than six novels happening this year.

 

[Christopher]

Does anyone know if "the contract" would specify a minimum or maximum of novels allowed per calendar or fiscal year? Would S&S possibly be obligated to produce a certain number of 2018 novels or just publish whatever they can get done?

I don't think the licenses get specific about scheduling or when a book comes out. After all, books can get delayed for many reasons. A scheduling commitment is something that would be locked in more by agreements with the distributors and vendors -- if you promise to deliver merchandise for them to sell at a certain time, then you need to keep that promise if at all possible. But that's the other end of the process from the licensing deal. That deal is just permission to use the characters, concepts, and universe. It doesn't micromanage how they're used, let alone when.

Some years back, when Pocket decided to reduce their output from two Trek novels per month to one per month, that wasn't about a change in the licensing deal, it was a decision the publisher made to improve sales, since they believed that such a large number of novels was glutting the market and scaring away potential new readers. It was Pocket/S&S's decision, because it was their business and their sales that were affected.

 

[Greg Cox]

I can't speak for Pocket and Star Trek, but typically you would contract for X number of books, not for periods of time. Some licensing agreements might have an expiration date built into them. (You can publish this tie-in book for X years before the rights reverts to the licensor.) But the pub dates are not going to be spelled out in the contract.

(I remember negotiating with one licensor who DID want the pub dates pinned down in the contract, but that's one of the reasons I ultimately walked away from that deal. I don't want to end up in breach of contract if a book had to be rescheduled for some reason.)

 

[JD]

Would the e-books be included as part of the same contract as the paper books, or would they have their own?

 

[Christopher]

Would the e-books be included as part of the same contract as the paper books, or would they have their own?

The licensing contract will include everything the publisher wants to license from the copyright owner. If it wants to license multiple things at once, it will negotiate them as part of the same contract.

And licensing something to somebody does not mean doing their job for them. The whole reason the studio licenses work to other companies is so that they will do the work. Deciding on whether to do print books or e-books, or how many to release per year or on what schedule -- those are publishing decisions. So they're decisions for the publisher to make. Greg would know a lot better than I would, but I'd assume a publisher would go to a studio and say "We want to publish X number of paperback books/e-books/comic books/cookbooks/whatever based on your characters and ideas," and the studio will say "Okay, you can do that if you give us approval and Y percent of the money you get."

 

[Damian]

When they were doing 2 books a month (sometimes more when there were hardcovers published some months) was when I was in college and read like 2 Star Trek books in 4 years. I was also dirt poor at the time and couldn't afford to buy many Star Trek books. That resulted in me having quite a backlog of books to buy and read over the years. Funny, after all these years I'm still catching up on those books. But the good news means I'll still have books to read while we wait for the books to pick up again . But the 90's was a great time to be a fan. Multiple TV series, at least 2 at the same time, movies, loads of books. But I can see why they felt it may have been too much. I have more time to read now, but I'd probably still have a Hell of a time trying to read 2 books every month.

 

[Christopher]

When they were doing 2 books a month (sometimes more when there were hardcovers published some months) was when I was in college and read like 2 Star Trek books in 4 years. I was also dirt poor at the time and couldn't afford to buy many Star Trek books.

Didn't you have a library card?

 

[Damian]

Didn't you have a library card?

Yeah, and our college library would get some Star Trek books in. The other problem was I had very little time for pleasure reading. I was a biology major with a minor in philosophy (I always tell people that makes me qualified to think about biology ). I frankly don't know how kids can party in college. It was all I could do just to keep up, and I was no straight A student. I was very interested in bioethics, esp. involving genetic engineering, probably one of the reasons I really enjoyed Greg Cox's books on Khan since he touched on that obviously.

 

[donners22]

I miss the days when my library had a whole section dedicated to Trek novels, and Target had a big case of them.

Now the former has more Warhammer novels than Trek [having not ordered any of the latter since 2012], and they aren't even sold in mainstream bookstores, let alone department stores.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I miss the days when my library had a whole section dedicated to Trek novels, and Target had a big case of them.

Now the former has more Warhammer novels than Trek [having not ordered any of the latter since 2012], and they aren't even sold in mainstream bookstores, let alone department stores.

I agree, I remember being able to buy trek books at target and kmart when i was a kid. Now it's even impossible to find them at dymocks most of the time. I usually have to order them in.

 

[Christopher]

I miss the days when my library had a whole section dedicated to Trek novels, and Target had a big case of them.

Now the former has more Warhammer novels than Trek [having not ordered any of the latter since 2012], and they aren't even sold in mainstream bookstores, let alone department stores.

In my city's libraries, there's extensive use of the request system and shipping books from one branch to another, so they don't really stay in any one branch -- they just hang out in whatever branch they were last returned to until someone requests them to be shipped to another branch. So if you can't find a book you want in your local branch, maybe log onto the library's catalog and do a search for it.

 

[tomswift2002]

Would the e-books be included as part of the same contract as the paper books, or would they have their own?

They are, but I wonder how much longer S&S will be planning ebook releases.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/...carpenters-the-vinyl-collection.15689/page-24

 

[Christopher]

They are, but I wonder how much longer S&S will be planning ebook releases.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/...carpenters-the-vinyl-collection.15689/page-24

If people were wrong when they said digital tech would kill print, why would they be any more right when they say digital is dying? The news media have spent generations predicting either that a new format would never catch on at all or that it would lead to the extinction of older formats (or civilized society in general), and they've usually been wrong.

 

[David Weller]

For me it will always be paper if available. It’s a better experience reading a paper book rather than an ebook. IMHO.

However, I do have a tablet with ebooks on as when I go away I can put a suitcase load of books in my pocket.

With audio and video though I prefer digital as the experience is the same and you don’t have to mess about with discs.

 

[Idran]

If people were wrong when they said digital tech would kill print, why would they be any more right when they say digital is dying? The news media have spent generations predicting either that a new format would never catch on at all or that it would lead to the extinction of older formats (or civilized society in general), and they've usually been wrong.

Plus, the article that tomswift linked is an opinion piece.

And it's not even an opinion piece about abandoning digital, it's about how both have their pros and cons. I mean, it's one of those weird sensory-porn approaches to analog that I'll never understand. (Seriously, "even the subtle taste of the ink on your fingertips"? You were at a loss to figure out how to hit "taste" weren't you David Sax.) But it still literally says at the end of the article that "[w]e do not face a simple choice of digital or analog....Instead, we are faced with a decision of how to strike the right balance between the two."

For me it will always be paper if available. It’s a better experience reading a paper book rather than an ebook. IMHO.

However, I do have a tablet with ebooks on as when I go away I can put a suitcase load of books in my pocket.

With audio and video though I prefer digital as the experience is the same and you don’t have to mess about with discs.

Funny thing is, audiophiles and videophiles would consider you as ridiculous for saying digital's the same experience as analog as you'd probably consider someone saying print and ebooks are the same experience.

 

[David Weller]

Funny thing is, audiophiles and videophiles would consider you as ridiculous for saying digital's the same experience as analog as you'd probably consider someone saying print and ebooks are the same experience.

I know