News New Star Trek Novel Blurbs

[Avro Arrow]

The rise in e-book readership (and audiobook, err, listenership) is more than compensating.

If they decided to release the Trek novels as ebooks only, I would actually be fine with that. It's just that if there is a physical version available, I feel compelled to get that one instead. (And yes, I know that's on me.)

The doubling in price of the physical version may be enough for me to overcome that compulsion, though. I guess we'll see.

ETA: Just checked some prices on the Chapters site. The MMPB for Architects of Infinity (chosen because it's recent) has a list of C$10.99, and the ebook is C$8.99.

The TPB for Fear Itself has a list of C$22.00, and the ebook is C$11.99. So I guess either way, the price is going up, but at least from the MMPB to the ebook of the TPB, it's only one dollar.

 

[Damian]

If they decided to release the Trek novels as ebooks only, I would actually be fine with that. It's just that if there is a physical version available, I feel compelled to get that one instead. (And yes, I know that's on me.)

The doubling in price of the physical version may be enough for me to overcome that compulsion, though. I guess we'll see.

ETA: Just checked some prices on the Chapters site. The MMPB for Architects of Infinity (chosen because it's recent) has a list of C$10.99, and the ebook is C$8.99.

The TPB for Fear Itself has a list of C$22.00, and the ebook is C$11.99. So I guess either way, the price is going up, but at least from the MMPB to the ebook of the TPB, it's only one dollar.

I'm the same way. I'll buy an e-book if that is the only version available, but I prefer the hard copy any day. I'm the same way with music and movies. I still buy CD's in fact.

 

[Damian]

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....

I can sympathize. I have the first Romulan War book (the trade paperback version) and it drives me crazy that it's a different size then my other Enterprise books.

And DVD's too. I bought the first 10 Star Trek films when they released the Special Edition versions and it drove me nuts that they didn't do the same for Star Trek (2009) because it looked different on my shelf. I know, crazy, but I can't help it. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT

 

[Snaploud]

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/

Your link is encouraging, though I should specify that I was talking about the over-all decline in book readership over the course of decades.

Since 1978, the number of Americans who had not read a book in the previous 12 months has increased from 8% to 23%, and the number of Americans who had read 11 or more books in the previous twelve months has decreased from 42% to 28%.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-decline-of-the-american-book-lover/283222/

 

[Therin of Andor]

In Australia, with the 2009 Trek movie, Simon & Schuster reorganised how Trek books were imported into Australia, and seemingly started to absorb the air freight costs to make their books more competitive. Up till then, Aussie fans typically paid double the US cover price for sea freight books (waiting three months beyond the US release date) or, if we were impatient, we paid triple the US cover price for air freight (ie. when Diamond distributed Trek books with the weekly comics).

So the cost of a Trek trade PB is not too bad for us at all, and we often find our new Trek fix on the "New Release" shelves about a week before the US release date!

So I'm happy.

Also, authors supposedly get a higher royalty percentage on trades than MMPBs?

 

[ATimson]

The TPB for Fear Itself has a list of C$22.00, and the ebook is C$11.99. So I guess either way, the price is going up, but at least from the MMPB to the ebook of the TPB, it's only one dollar.

Only one dollar in Canada, but in the US it's $4 more - or a 50% increase - to go from MMPB (physical or ebook) to TPB ebook.

It's likely that there are some increased costs with the TPB-ebooks - higher royalty, specifically. But I will be very surprised if all of the extra $2.80 that S&S is pocketing (after retailer cut) is going to the author and licensor.

I'm sure that we'll see the actual retail price of the print versions below the ebooks prices, as happened with all three Discovery novels.