I’m starting to wonder if it is something on CBS’s front that is holding up any announcement. Maybe CBS is dragging out the negotiations for some reason. Maybe they are trying to redesign their marketing of Trek. Maybe it’s not S&S’s fault.
2018 Releases
- Thread starter aventinelover
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I’m not disagreeing with anything you just said. I find it even more annoying and baffling that you don’t know more than I do about what is taking place. Even if you couldn’t talk about it in public.
I will say, Memory Alpha usually does a pretty good job of having information about future books once they are announced. Usually as soon as something is announced it's on there. Even Kirsten Beyer's next Voyager book is on there, though obviously no release date.
I too am a bit baffled by the complete lack of information. For Christopher this is his livelihood and if I were in his shoes, I'd probably be wearing the floor out with my pacing. For me, yes, I love Star Trek and the novels, but I do have tons of other interests, I love Hitchcock films, James Bond films, horror, sports (let's go Pens--7-0 baby--sorry couldn't help myself there).
But the lack of any information whatsoever really blows my mind as a fan. How I found this website initially late last year was I did a search for future Star Trek books. I didn't even know there was going to be a stoppage. I was growing curious, then concerned that there were very few books announced for 2018 on Memory Alpha. Month after month went by and nothing. I then did a search and still nothing. Absolutely nothing, except for this message board on this site. That was it. Even other fandom sites had nothing.
That's why my initial thought was, hmm, maybe Pocketbooks stopped printing Star Trek books. Maybe they're not selling as well as I thought they were and they decided to cut back to just 2 or 3 Discovery books a year. Seeing comments by other authors here, I'm confident that is not the case any longer.
But, how many fans out there that aren't on this site think that? How many think maybe Pocketbooks is just finished with Star Trek? What if they don't come back once the books do return, thinking there's nothing new anymore? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but right now, there may be many Trekkies who just think Discovery is it. Maybe they think, well TNG has been off the year for 25 years now, maybe they just decided enough with them. Maybe they just want to focus on one show.
I too am a bit baffled by the complete lack of information. For Christopher this is his livelihood and if I were in his shoes, I'd probably be wearing the floor out with my pacing. For me, yes, I love Star Trek and the novels, but I do have tons of other interests, I love Hitchcock films, James Bond films, horror, sports (let's go Pens--7-0 baby--sorry couldn't help myself there).
But the lack of any information whatsoever really blows my mind as a fan. How I found this website initially late last year was I did a search for future Star Trek books. I didn't even know there was going to be a stoppage. I was growing curious, then concerned that there were very few books announced for 2018 on Memory Alpha. Month after month went by and nothing. I then did a search and still nothing. Absolutely nothing, except for this message board on this site. That was it. Even other fandom sites had nothing.
That's why my initial thought was, hmm, maybe Pocketbooks stopped printing Star Trek books. Maybe they're not selling as well as I thought they were and they decided to cut back to just 2 or 3 Discovery books a year. Seeing comments by other authors here, I'm confident that is not the case any longer.
But, how many fans out there that aren't on this site think that? How many think maybe Pocketbooks is just finished with Star Trek? What if they don't come back once the books do return, thinking there's nothing new anymore? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but right now, there may be many Trekkies who just think Discovery is it. Maybe they think, well TNG has been off the year for 25 years now, maybe they just decided enough with them. Maybe they just want to focus on one show.
Believe me, I've done that already. But it didn't accomplish anything. All I can do is try to find things to tide me over until something gives. I can't very well focus on getting other work if I'm panicking over the work I don't have.
Original Trek novels have been around for half a century. Naturally there's been a lot of audience turnover in that time, with old readers leaving and new readers coming in. That's just part of the business. Once there are books again, new people will presumably discover them, especially now that there's a new show on the air creating a new generation of fans.
Naturally the delay in renewal is a setback, there's no denying that. But that doesn't make it fatal. Trek tie-in publishing has lasted this long, amazingly long, so I doubt any single setback is likely to kill it.
The situation with the Doctor Who novels comes to mind.
At one time there were 22 new novels a year featuring all the Doctors. Now three are published when each new season starts and only feature the current incarnation.
At one time there were 22 new novels a year featuring all the Doctors. Now three are published when each new season starts and only feature the current incarnation.
I will say that I’ve prrsonally seen at least one fan group on facebook erroneously announce that Pocket books lost its licence to Titan, who will now be publishing the new books. As evidence they cited the publication of Prometheus 1.
What makes sense to fans (ie., publishing Past Doctor novels) may not make sense financially. IIRC, back in 2005 where there were the final Past Doctor Adventures and the first six New Series Adventures, the NSAs vastly outsold the NSAs, so it didn't make sense to continue with them -- if BBC Books could put the same effort and expense into 6 (eventually 9) novels a year that they put into (at the time) 11, then wouldn't it make sense to focus on the 6 instead of the 11?
Then, there are some factors behind the reduction of the line in 2012 to the occasional hardcover and 3 New Series Adventures a year that aren't public.
I'm hoping that things will be different in the autumn and beyond, especially now that there isn't any more Douglas Adams to mine.
I can see why people might think that. If I hadn't stumbled on this site I may have wondered that myself--hmm, I wonder if there's a new publisher in town--or maybe it's just a new imprint (like the Gallery Books for trade paperbacks).
Funny, I probably wouldn't have picked up the Prometheus novel that came out if it weren't for the Pocketbooks hiatus. I generally just stick to the S&S books when it comes to Star Trek (though I do have most of the Bantam books from the 70;s also). I'm not a comic book person and with all the stuff online, like Memory Alpha and Beta, I don't even bother much with nonfiction anymore. But I figured while there was no Pocketbook novels I'd give it a try, and it was actually pretty good. It sort of ended abruptly, but then it's part of a trilogy so I expected that.
Plus I still do have a stack of books from the 90's that I've never read. And even beyond that I can always re-read some older novels (though I hope it don't go on that long). It's been years since I've read some and they'd probably be almost new again.
I don't doubt that. What I'm saying is that assume for a moment the worst case scenario does go down and Pocket does lose the license. I doubt they'll be able to publish the novel anymore. Especially if another publisher takes the license, I don't think they'll sit by and allow Pocket to publish a new Trek novel just because it was contracted a few years earlier before they lost the license.
I could accept the "can't talk about ongoing negotiations" line that gets bandied about with this topic were it not for the fact that Pocket already dropped a very important piece of news at the start of all this with the revelation that they were obtaining rights to do Kelvin timeline novels, spoken by a Pocket Books editor, at a public event. That's the kind of news that should not be shared unless it is a 110% done deal, which is clearly not the case given we have been treated to eight months radio silence due to "ongoing negotiations" since this news was reported. If these negotiations can't be talked about, they should not be talked about at all. But not only were we made aware of existence, we know what one of the goals of the negotiations are. That's a lot made available to the public about negotiations that can't be talked about.
The decrease of Doctor Who novels in recent years has a lot to do with Steven Moffat not feeling inclined to sign off on approvals. Indeed. because he wasn't expecting to keep the job of showrunner past 2015 he didn't even sign off on any approvals for 2016 at all, and by the time it was decided he'd be staying on until 2017, it was too late to get anything out for 2016, which is why that year didn't have any new novels at all. By comparison the "gap year" in 2009 did have an increase in novels published to make up for the show's decreased output on television. There are rumblings that one of Chris Chibnall's goals is to get the novels "back on track" so to speak.
Man, I'm really not all that impressed with the Douglas Adams Doctor Who novels. Shada was good fun, I liked that. But the James Goss ones try too hard to imitate the Douglas Adams prose style proving that if you aren't Douglas Adams, you shouldn't write like Douglas Adams. Truth be told, he didn't always pull it off himself.
It's basically what ive been doing. Using this site: http://killie-booktalk.blogspot.com/p/star-trek-reading-challenge.html ive been doing a chronological read-through. i started with TNG Encounter at Farpoint. I'm now up to TNG: Reunion. its been a blast.
That's not how it works. Remember the 17th Rule of Acquisition: A contract is a contract is a contract. Bantam went on publishing Trek novels for 2 years after it lost the license to Pocket, because those novels were contracted before the license expired. And Pocket couldn't act on its license to publish original novels until Bantam was done fulfilling its contracts. Contracts are the foundation of business -- they don't get casually discarded. And if a publisher and an author enter into a legal contract, I don't think any outside party has the right to force them to breach its obligations. Pocket couldn't force Bantam to cancel its contracted novels, so I doubt anyone else could force Pocket to do the same, no matter how long the delay was.
A license is permission. A contract is a promise. Losing the license just means you no longer have permission to make new promises -- but you're still obligated to keep the promises you've already made.
Then again, Douglas Adams was basically trying to write like Robert Sheckley.
I really don't get why Trek is always compared to Star Wars. Star Wars is perhaps the biggest media franchise in Hollywood history, certainly in terms of mainstream AND cult audiences, invented film tie in merchandising, and is owned by Disney, one of the biggest money making machines on the planet.
I'm not saying Star Trek books haven't been/won't be profitable, but they're aimed at a niche percentage of a franchise that isn't really competing with Star Wars/MCU, in terms of popularity these days. They aren't spending money on advertising them because they don't have to, they know that the dedicated readers will either search them out, or find out easily enough from second hand sources.
You could have an online presence everywhere, but you aren't going to pick up new readers for novels based on series that were broadcast 20+ years ago (not to mention those with such a back catalogue to scare off anyone even thinking about it), especially when a vast number of today's Trek audience will know nothing other than the JJverse.
CBS Licensing or the next license holder could pay S&S not to publish, essentially buying out the remainder of the contract.
Okay, maybe it's theoretically possible, but it's not a given. It wouldn't be the automatic or inevitable consequence of a change of license; someone would have to go out of their way to make it happen. But what would anyone have to gain by doing so? It's just one book. Hardly seems worth the trouble to block it.
I wasn't saying buying out the last book on S&S's contract was a given. I don't know what someone would gain from it. It's probably, yes, more trouble than it's worth. Still, it's possible. *shrug*
^The point is, The Wormhole expressed the fear that another publisher getting the license would inevitably lead to the novel's cancellation, and I was trying to offer reassurance that there's no cause for concern there. Even if it is theoretically possible, it's not likely.
Yeah, we know here is one more Discovery and Voyager book. Pocketbooks waited, what, 2 years to publish new books until Bantam was done. Any new publisher wouldn't have to wait that long for just 2 books (one we know is coming out this summer). I'd imagine in either event the contract would have to be honored and the 2 authors paid. I guess it's possible the new publisher buys the contract and releases them themselves--or is it legally possible? Just for the sake of argument, if Titan were to become the new publisher, could they buy the contract for one or both, then release the book(s) under Titan? I can't fathom a reason why they'd want to, except to maybe get a head start since there'd be a lag before new novels are written, but is that a possibility?
Plus, I tend to agree with Christopher. S&S is not likely to give up on it's exclusive contract, and being that they are tied to CBS, I doubt CBS is going to screw what is a subsidiary. I admit I don't know all the in's and outs of these sorts of things, but I can't see them cutting out one of their own.
The only way they lose it I think is if they want to lose it. If for some reason S&S just didn't want to be involved with Star Trek for some reason and focus elsewhere, then maybe another interested outfit could come in. Just my opinion of course.
Plus, I tend to agree with Christopher. S&S is not likely to give up on it's exclusive contract, and being that they are tied to CBS, I doubt CBS is going to screw what is a subsidiary. I admit I don't know all the in's and outs of these sorts of things, but I can't see them cutting out one of their own.
The only way they lose it I think is if they want to lose it. If for some reason S&S just didn't want to be involved with Star Trek for some reason and focus elsewhere, then maybe another interested outfit could come in. Just my opinion of course.
Pocket still has to bid on the rights, so there's always a chance someone, like Titan, or Tor, could come along with a better bid and get the contract. I'm not sure, Pocket might get some kind of priority, I'm not sure, but I do know that they aren't guaranteed to always get the contract again when it runs out.
They've already proven with the Prometheus books, David A. Goodman's books, and Insight Editions' guide books that they are willing to work with other publishers besides Pocket.
They've already proven with the Prometheus books, David A. Goodman's books, and Insight Editions' guide books that they are willing to work with other publishers besides Pocket.
Ideally, they won't stop reading in general, and in five or ten years (kidding) when there's a new Star Trek novel, they'll notice it at the bookstore or Amazon will recommend it to them and they'll read it then. I remember when I was first getting into Trek novels, it was a while before it even sank in for me that there were two new ones a month, and not just an occasionally-refreshed sample of a giant pool of books. I don't expect most of the audience is made up of lifer die-hards like the kind of people who post here and would buy a subscription straight from Pocket if they could, since we get the new book on the last Tuesday of the month like clockwork on our own anyway.
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