News New Star Trek Novel Blurbs

[AutoAdmin]

A new news article has been published at TrekToday:

Simon & Schuster has provided details for the first three Trek novels of 2019. Plus – all the books will be released...

Continue reading...

 

[Damian]

I must have missed it but I didn't realize all the new novels were going to be in Trade Paperback for $16 each, basically twice as much money as the MMP.

I'm not one to cry poverty but if they go back to releasing them monthly again I'm not sure I'm ready to shell out $16/month every month. I'm curious about what other people think about that.

 

[JD]

Yeah, that's probably more than I'd be willing to spend on one book every month. These days I'm getting most of my books when Google or Amazon put them on sale for $2 or $3. I'm going to get the last two or three TNGR books once I finish up the Prey trilogy (I'm over halfway through #2 right now) and those will be the first books I've paid almost full price for in months. Newer Trek e-books on Google Play tend to be $6.99 rather than the print price of $7.99, so I still won't be paying the full price I would if I was getting the MMPBs.

 

[Reanok]

I'm definitely interested In the Tos novel by Greg Cox and the TNG book by Dayton ward. Also the Discovery book too.I'm glad the books will be larger print yay!

 

[Damian]

I'll probably buy these 3 coming out and have bought the Discovery books thus far. But if this becomes the new norm I'm not sure I'll be buying them right out of the gate anymore. I might do what JD is doing and wait a bit for them to come down in price. I love the books but I'd have a hard time justifying a $16 monthly expense. Hell, I held out for the Discovery Blu-Ray because I didn't want to spend $10/month for All Access.

 

[Kilana2]

The increases in prices force me to pick more carefully which book I will read in the end. I'm not interested in Discovery, but TOS and TNG. Both novels are unlikely to be translated anytime soon into German. Even the German publisher had to increase the prices. I will think twice about rebuying a German novel that I've already read in English....

 

[Damian]

The increases in prices force me to pick more carefully which book I will read in the end. I'm not interested in Discovery, but TOS and TNG. Both novels are unlikely to be translated anytime soon into German. Even the German publisher had to increase the prices. I will think twice about rebuying a German novel that I've already read in English....

I've been buying them all here in the US when they were mostly MMP for about $7.99 (though you can sometimes find them on Amazon for about $1 less or so). And I even bought the occasional trade paperback like the first Romulan War book and the Discovery books.

But all the books as trades? I don't know. I'd hate to miss out but that's a lot of money each month. It used to be if you were patient and waited they'd re-release them (along with hardcovers) in MMP about a year later. But I'm not so sure if that will continue. I haven't heard anything about them doing that with the Discovery books.

 

[Enterprise1701]

All Trek novels are going to be trade paperbacks now???

Come on!

 

[2of1million]

The increases in prices force me to pick more carefully which book I will read in the end. I'm not interested in Discovery, but TOS and TNG. Both novels are unlikely to be translated anytime soon into German. Even the German publisher had to increase the prices. I will think twice about rebuying a German novel that I've already read in English....

Same. I’d stick to my favorites TNG and TOS and cut everything else out.. Even $11.99 for an ebook every month is a bit expensive when I’m used to paying like $1.99 these days, (Gotta love the ebook sales).

 

[tomswift2002]

Dayton Ward's novel sounds like a retread of the 2015 novel Armageddon's Arrow:

Available Light
“Meanwhile, deep in the distant, unexplored region of space known as the Odyssean Pass, Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise must put aside personal feelings and political concerns as they investigate a massive mysterious spacecraft. Adrift for centuries in the void, the ship is vital to the survival of an endangered civilization which has spent generations searching for a world to sustain what remains of its people. Complicating matters is a band of marauders who have their own designs on the ancient ship, with only the Enterprise standing in their way…"

Armageddon's Arrow
It is a new age of exploration, and the USS Enterprise is dispatched to "the Odyssean Pass", a region charted only by unmanned probes and believed to contain numerous inhabited worlds. Approaching a star system with two such planets, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew find a massive alien vessel, drifting in interstellar space for decades. Sensors detect life aboard the derelict–aliens held in suspended animation. Thought to be an immense sleeper ship, the vessel actually is a weapon capable of destroying entire worlds...the final gambit in a war that has raged for generations across the nearby system. Captain Picard is now caught in the middle, of this conflict and attempts to mediate, as both sides want this doomsday weapon...which was sent from the future with the sole purpose of ending the interplanetary war before it even began!

Ok, is the Odyssean Pass some sort of derelict alien ship graveyard?

 

[Snaploud]

Dayton Ward's novel sounds like a retread of the 2015 novel Armageddon's Arrow:





Ok, is the Odyssean Pass some sort of derelict alien ship graveyard?

@Dayton Ward is the writer for both books, so I assume the connection is part of the plot.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

It's not like I got every book every month (and I was late to the party so bought most of my books second hand anyway) so as much as the extra cost is annoying it's the fact they'll be a different size to all the others on my shelf from now on which I'm angry about....

 

[Christopher]

The industry is changing. MMPBs seem to be on the way out, since e-books have replaced them as the inexpensive book-buying option. So there's probably no turning back.

Honestly, I still find it amazing that Trek MMPBs remained priced at $7.99 for a dozen years, from 2005-2017. In the equivalent span from 1993-2005, the price went up 4 times, starting at $5.50 and then rising to $5.99, then $6.50, then $6.99, then $7.99. And a dozen years before that, in 1981, The Entropy Effect cost only $2.50. So we've been lucky to have a constant MMPB price for the most recent 1/3 of the entire history of Pocket Trek. But it couldn't last forever.

 

[BillJ]

The industry is changing. MMPBs seem to be on the way out, since e-books have replaced them as the inexpensive book-buying option.

But they currently charge pretty much the same price for physical and e-books. In an economy that still hasn't completely recovered, Pocket may find less people interested in buying books that cost twice the price.

 

[Snaploud]

There are generally two ways toward profitability: increasing your base of consumers (your readership) or increasing your price. The trek readership has decreased since the 90s, so the prices are going up. The trade paperback (prestige) format is a way to help justify the price increases.

A similar story is taking place with trek television. CBS All Access is a way of increasing the price on trek fans to fund something that may not be popular enough to survive on network television.

 

[Christopher]

There are generally two ways toward profitability: increasing your base of consumers (your readership) or increasing your price. The trek readership has decreased since the 90s, so the prices are going up. The trade paperback (prestige) format is a way to help justify the price increases.

A similar story is taking place with trek television. CBS All Access is a way of increasing the price on trek fans to fund something that may not be popular enough to survive on network television.

No, both the rise of trade paperbacks and the rise of streaming television are industry-wide trends, hardly limited to Star Trek.

 

[Snaploud]

No, both the rise of trade paperbacks and the rise of streaming television are industry-wide trends, hardly limited to Star Trek.

I never said it was limited to Star Trek. Trade Paperbacks are a response to lower readership across-the-board, and paid streaming television often acts as a way to create products for smaller fan bases. Star Trek just happens to be a good case study.

 

[Damian]

But they currently charge pretty much the same price for physical and e-books. In an economy that still hasn't completely recovered, Pocket may find less people interested in buying books that cost twice the price.

That is the risk. I'm a loyal Trek novel reader. I've been buying them continuously at least the last 15 to 20 years and before that in the late 80s and early 90s (I had to stop while I was in college because I had no money but I went back and picked up most of the ones I missed)--I probably have about 90% of the Star Trek books out there at this point. But this is going to put a crimp on how many books I buy. Christopher is right, the MMP's have been stable in price for a long time. And if they were just increasing the price to say $8.99 I'd be ok with that. But it's the jump from $7.99 to $16.00 that's an issue. That's a huge jump basically.

For Discovery, a new show with a loyal fan base, that's one thing. But I'm not sure that's going to work for say a new Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Titan or Enterprise book. I'm not sure those lines have the readership to support $16 books....as much as it pains me to say that because I personally love those novels (though admittedly not enough to pay that much every month).

And a dozen years before that, in 1981, The Entropy Effect cost only $2.50

Do you know what's sort of amusing about that is a few years back I was buying the old Bantam books at a used book store that was selling them. I paid about $3 for each of them--they were in good, even very good condition and some were even 1st printings so I thought it was a fair price. What's amusing though is the original list price was $1.50

 

[MadeIndescribable]

Just realised there is a silver lining to the more expensive-won't fit in with the rest of the others problem.

I have been meaning to support my local library more....

 

[Christopher]

Trade Paperbacks are a response to lower readership across-the-board

Turns out that's a myth. It's only readership of print books that's in decline. The rise in e-book readership (and audiobook, err, listenership) is more than compensating.

http://authorearnings.com/sfwa2018/