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Dream a Dream: Hardcopy of E-book Exclusives

Stevil2001

Stevil2001

Vice Admiral
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Quoting myself in another thread:
Stevil2001 said:
What would be nice and (presumably) cheap are print collections of the e-novellas. There's the eight Corps of Engineers books, Slings and Arrows, and the various e-books that have followed The Struggle Within.
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I couldn't let this thought go without making a list. Based on @ryan123450's helpful list, I reckon you could collect the outstanding e-novellas in 7 (or 8) volumes:

Corps of Engineers: Remembrance of Things Past
  • Turn the Page
  • Troubleshooting
  • The Light
  • The Art of the Comeback
  • Signs from Heaven
  • Ghosts
  • Remembrance of Things Past
I haven't read those stories, so maybe it would have to be two volumes if they're longer ones (which seems likely with Terri and Ilsa).

The Next Generation: Slings and Arrows
  • A Sea of Troubles
  • The Oppressor's Wrong
  • The Insolence of Office
  • That Sleep of Death
  • A Weary Life
  • Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment
Obviously this set was designed to exist, like Mere Anarchy.

The modern ones actually slot into a couple straightforward groups for nice collections.

Typhon Pact/Destiny Era Adventures
  • Typhon Pact: The Struggle Within
  • The Next Generation: The Stuff of Dreams
  • Titan: Absent Enemies
  • The Next Generation: Q Are Cordially Uninvited...
Original Series Adventures
  • Vanguard: In Tempest's Wake
  • Seasons of Light and Darkness
  • The More Things Change
  • Shadow of the Machine
  • Miasma
Deep Space Nine: Quark & Odo Adventures by Block & Erdmann
  • Lust's Latinum Lost (and Found)
  • Rules of Accusation
  • I, the Constable
Department of Temporal Investigations Adventures
  • The Collectors
  • Time Lock
  • Shield of the Gods
New Frontier: The Returned
  • Part One
  • Part Two
  • Part Three

I live in hope, S&S!
 
Most of what I read these days is e-books, so I'm not dying to get these in hardcopy, but I would think they could at least collect the last CoE novellas, just to finish up the series for the people who read all the rest in paperback. The same could probably go for the DTI novellas and New Frontier: The Return.
As for the rest, a lot of other series will often include novellas as extras in later paperbacks, and I think that would be a perfect to get the others into the hands of people who don't like e-books.
 
Oh, the eight outstanding Corps of Engineers novellas would have to be in two trades, definitely. And Ilsa and Terri aren't nearly the problem so much as Phaedra, Dayton & Kevin, and especially Glenn. Here are the word counts:

Turn the Page: 31,013
Troubleshooting: 24,321
The Light: 26,434
The Art of the Comeback: 37,210
Signs from Heaven: 28,272
Ghost: 27,248
Remembrance of Things Past Book 1: 25,619
Remembrance of Things Past Book 2: 26,141

That's 226,258 words, which is a bit ungainly for a single volume. Splitting it in two gives us 118,978 in our theoretical Book 14 and 107,280 in Book 15, which is eminently doable in the trade format.
 
Good thread.

Comic book editors used to keep standalone fill-in issues for when the regularly scheduled book was delayed. Maybe collections like this could work in a similar manner.

I'd like to see the two stories from Strange New Worlds (2016) see the light of day somehow. I've never been able to wrap my mind around the top two winners being rewarded by not having their stories published.
 
^ There were 10 stories selected for inclusion in the anthology, and two honorable mentions which received some sort of thing through Archway Publishing.
 
KRAD said:
Oh, the eight outstanding Corps of Engineers novellas would have to be in two trades, definitely. And Ilsa and Terri aren't nearly the problem so much as Phaedra, Dayton & Kevin, and especially Glenn. Here are the word counts:

Turn the Page: 31,013
Troubleshooting: 24,321
The Light: 26,434
The Art of the Comeback: 37,210
Signs from Heaven: 28,272
Ghost: 27,248
Remembrance of Things Past Book 1: 25,619
Remembrance of Things Past Book 2: 26,141

That's 226,258 words, which is a bit ungainly for a single volume. Splitting it in two gives us 118,978 in our theoretical Book 14 and 107,280 in Book 15, which is eminently doable in the trade format.
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This is nice to know. Someday I'll read them. I keep waiting for them to be reasonably priced, but I actually think the prices have inched up over the years. $6.99 for an e-book novella! :eek:
 
Dayton Ward said:
^ There were 10 stories selected for inclusion in the anthology, and two honorable mentions which received some sort of thing through Archway Publishing.
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Time to do a little googling

http://www.startrekbooks.com/c/strangenewworldswinners.

So there were 10 Grand Prize winners, and two first prize winners. And the first prize winners got book deals valued higher than the cash prizes of the Grand prize winners, but didn't get there stories published.

Also, for some reason, their book deals preclude them from writing a Star Trek novel. Obviously because...um..because...you know what? Screw it. This is probably Glenn's fault, too.
 
^ The "not a Star Trek novel" was strictly for the Archway thing. They're not precluded from *ever* writing a Trek novel; they just couldn't use this prize package to do so.

And yeah, I'm blaming Glenn, too.
 
marlboro said:
Good thread.

Comic book editors used to keep standalone fill-in issues for when the regularly scheduled book was delayed. Maybe collections like this could work in a similar manner.
Click to expand...
They did do that a few years ago when there was a gap in the schedule, they also republished the old TNG novel, Nightshade, by Laurell K. Hamilton, who's now gone on to write a really popular Urban Fantasy series.
 
JD said:
They did do that a few years ago when there was a gap in the schedule, they also republished the old TNG novel, Nightshade, by Laurell K. Hamilton, who's now gone on to write a really popular Urban Fantasy series.
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Yeah, and the last two Corps of Engineers collections were also schedule fillers. Now that all the books are TPBs, they wouldn't even be out of place, especially the DTI, DS9, and NF ones, which as they are by single authors, would look pretty much like a novel to the casual observer.
 
I got to admit, I'm kind of surprised there's so many Star Trek e-books which haven't been released as print. Most other e-book exclusives for other franchises do get print editions within a year after the e-books are released, but not Star Trek for some reason.
 
DTI would be interesting. I'm still hoping for another regular DTI novel. But the e-book only stories as printed versions would be fine. DS9 would also be great.
I'm not sure about CoE. I've ordered the German version of another CoE omnibus. CoE is not one of my favorite area. And I don't miss the New Frontier e-book only stories.
 
The Wormhole said:
I got to admit, I'm kind of surprised there's so many Star Trek e-books which haven't been released as print. Most other e-book exclusives for other franchises do get print editions within a year after the e-books are released, but not Star Trek for some reason.
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There are two reluctant conclusions one can draw. Either Pocket doesn't see a market for these ebooks in print (ie., the potential market for these has been exhausted with the ebook edition) to justify the expense of a physical edition or Pocket's last contract with S&S precluded physical editions for these books (ie., they're not allowed). So, Pocket may not see money in the endeavor, or their hands may be tied.

Have any new, oriignal ebooks been announced for 2019/2020? I now wonder if the new contract signed last year permits them. As Stevil points out, the price structure for the ebook novellas was historically out of whack, which would limit the potential market in electronic format, which could lead Pocket's beancounters to assume there's no market for original Star Trek ebooks at all, so then Pocket might not negotiate for the rights for original Star Trek e-fiction in the last contract negotiation.
 
Allyn Gibson said:
Have any new, oriignal ebooks been announced for 2019/2020? I now wonder if the new contract signed last year permits them. As Stevil points out, the price structure for the ebook novellas was historically out of whack, which would limit the potential market in electronic format, which could lead Pocket's beancounters to assume there's no market for original Star Trek ebooks at all, so then Pocket might not negotiate for the rights for original Star Trek e-fiction in the last contract negotiation.
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The more recent e-novellas are reasonably priced (I just downloaded a DTI one for $2.99), actually; it's just the pre-Struggle Within ones someone seems to have priced as if they're e-copies of print novels.
 
Allyn Gibson said:
There are two reluctant conclusions one can draw. Either Pocket doesn't see a market for these ebooks in print (ie., the potential market for these has been exhausted with the ebook edition) to justify the expense of a physical edition or Pocket's last contract with S&S precluded physical editions for these books (ie., they're not allowed). So, Pocket may not see money in the endeavor, or their hands may be tied.
Click to expand...

I don't think it was forbidden. The reason I was commissioned to do three DTI novellas was to create the option of collecting them as a mass-market fix-up novel if the opportunity arose. So it was certainly considered to be at least potentially doable. But there didn't turn out to be slots in the schedule for any such reprints.
 
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