ViacomCBS Selling Simon & Schuster

[KRAD]

I'm sure they will continue to publish whatever books they have planned. I said it's become non-exclusive.

That is exceedingly unlikely, as that would require a significant renegotiation of the current contract, one that S&S is unlikely to agree to, as exclusivity is part of the benefit of having the license.

Discovery had "integrated storytelling" in its first season, which didn't stop them from completely shitcanning David Mack's inaugural Discovery novel in the show's second season because the show-runners wanted to do it and didn't care that it contradicted a novel. I don't see that changing without significantly changing the culture of Hollywood.

 

[KRAD]

Also "integrated storytelling" does not require that the production company own the publisher. Someone still has to publish whatever books they do, and if they want to pretend to make them canon, they can do that just as easily with S&S as someone else. And there has to be a someone else, because Nickelodeon doesn't publish books (except through S&S, which they're selling).

 

[BillJ]

If the contract with S&S specifies a period of exclusivity in certain territories, that will be honored through the completion of the current contract.

Does anyone know the length of the current contract? I would imagine that, if the product is profitable for Simon & Schuster, they will attempt to negotiate a new contract at the conclusion of the current deal. Nothing about selling them would seem to preclude that.

Yes, that’s the one. If they go to the licensing show in May, they will be pushing integrated storytelling as part of the license.

No matter what they publicly say, the tail will never wag the dog. The shows will do what they want to do, and the licensed material will have to follow suit. It is funny how people still haven't learned this. I remember people going on and on and on about how Star Wars novels were "canon" for decades, then with the stroke of a corporate pen, Disney put an end to it.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Also "integrated storytelling" does not require that the production company own the publisher.

Nobody has said it does.

ViacomCBS/Nickelodeon Consumer Products will want to license out everything. I’m not sure they own any merchandise companies, beyond having minor investments, for this reason. They rate it was an open market where it’s a free for all.

 

[Damian]

This is all very interesting, but a contract is a contract is a contract. I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of all contracts. But I know enough to know that a contract is binding unless someone breaks the terms in some fashion (and I see no evidence of that) or both sides voluntarily end it together. I don't see S&S just walking away from Star Trek. Is it their most profitable franchise. Probably not. But I'm sure it's enough of a profit for them to want to keep it in the family at least until the end of the contract.

And unless CBS/Paramount (or whatever they call themselves) wants to start their own publishing arm I don't see the benefit to them....and the reason they are divesting S&S is because they don't want to be in publishing anymore. Common sense would tell you during this sale they don't want to deal with finding a new home for Star Trek publishing while trying to sell the company and deal with what I would imagine would be a lawsuit by S&S for breaking the contract.

I'm sure it helped a great deal that S&S was owned by Viacom when they initially got the contract. But they can't break the contract without some good cause or something S&S has done to violate the contract. When any new company buys another company they are obliged to take on any existing contracts.

I'm sorry. I'm more inclined to listen to the numerous writers posting (some who have been involved with Star Trek publishing going back 20+ years) that this can't happen while the current contract is in effect then some guy I never heard of that just joined us a month ago.

I don't rule out other tie ins joining the fray for other tie ins like comics--or even some unique tie ins to this Nickelodeon show. But for the traditional novels in North America tied into the regular live action shows from the original series to it's various spin offs from TNG through Picard....I don't expect any changes on that front at least until the current contract runs out. And I wouldn't be surprised if S&S holds onto the contract through renegotiation. Star Trek maybe isn't their biggest moneymaker---but I think it's a steady moneymaker for them that they won't easily give it up. I have to think they'd make it worth Viacom's while to keep it if possible.

 

[RuthlessNate]

I'll believe the "something has big as High Republic and canon" when I see an announcement and I see the franchise's current producers come out and say, "Yeah, this is canon and we're sticking to it."

My impression is that Star Trek currently doesn't have quite the level of top-down content creation the way Lucasfilm does. Lucasfilm has guys like Pablo Hidalgo who go through every piece of Star Wars media being put together to make sure that it not only doesn't contradict other works, but won't cause problems with future releases. It seems to me that Kirsten Beyer is the closest thing Trek has to a Hidalgo at the moment. However, considering how we've already seen Discovery actively contradict the first novel, as KRAD pointed out, I don't think she has quite that level of power within the franchise's overall storytelling.

 

[Christopher]

I'll believe the "something has big as High Republic and canon" when I see an announcement and I see the franchise's current producers come out and say, "Yeah, this is canon and we're sticking to it."

Canon doesn't even stick to itself. Canons rewrite their own continuity all the time -- it's so routine that it astonishes me how many people think it's somehow against the rules. If canon were as immutable as people strangely believe it is, then Spider-Man would be 74 years old now and Darth Vader would've killed Luke Skywalker's father instead of being his father.

The problem with the word "canon" is that it's a misleading analogy. Religious canon is meant to be binding and immutable (though of course it isn't in practice), but a fictional canon is just the works of the original author (or franchise owner) as opposed to pastiches by other creators, and that original author or authors can reinvent their story's continuity however they want. The idea in fandom that canon is some sort of guarantee against contradiction is backward. The creators of canon have absolute freedom to contradict, rewrite, and reinvent their story as much as they want, because it's all their invention to begin with. The only people who aren't allowed to contradict canon are the people working outside of the canon, the tie-in authors under contract to tell stories consistent with the canon, however it happens to be currently defined. It's like how the tenants of an apartment building aren't allowed to make major changes to the apartment because they don't own the property, but the owner is perfectly free to remodel everything, even tear the whole building down and rebuild it if they want, because it belongs to them.

 

[Ronald Held]

What is the firm takeaway? S&S will publish Treklit novels until their contract expires?

 

[Greg Cox]

I remember when SMALLVILLE debuted and some (modern) fans were horrified by the idea that Clark and Lex had been friends back in Smallville when they were young. "That's not canon!"

Apparently unaware that this was a Silver Age thing that had been "canon" in the SUPERMAN comics up to the eighties at least.

"Canon" is not set in stone.

 

[Reanok]

I do wonder what this will mean to the future of Star trek books coming out in the future.If Simon&Schuster is sold and the license for the Star trek books.

 

[Greg Cox]

What is the firm takeaway? S&S will publish Treklit novels until their contract expires?

There is no firm takeaway at this point. Just lots of speculation.

The only accurate response is: "Who knows? We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out."

The company hasn't even been sold yet. They're just talking about selling it. So it's way too early to start assuming anything.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

What is the firm takeaway? S&S will publish Treklit novels until their contract expires?

Barring CBS buying out the novels contract (ie., paying S&S to relinquish it), yes. S&S will have the right to publish Star Trek novels until their contract expires in a few years.

Now, there are some extreme edge cases that are possible. CBS Licensing could refuse to approve any outlines and manuscripts, effectively ending the novel line before the contract expires. But, this would be dumb; it would send a message to licensees that CBS isn't a trustworthy partner. Or, S&S could decide not to commission any further novels, not unlike Marvel and the Star Trek comics in 1998, but again, that would be dumb; S&S would have basically wasted the money they spent on the licence by giving up on recouping their investment. So I don't put any weight on these extreme edge cases.

 

[JD]

They just spent over year negotiating a new contract, so I can't really see them not going through with it.

 

[Christopher]

I remember when SMALLVILLE debuted and some (modern) fans were horrified by the idea that Clark and Lex had been friends back in Smallville when they were young. "That's not canon!"

Apparently unaware that this was a Silver Age thing that had been "canon" in the SUPERMAN comics up to the eighties at least.

"Canon" is not set in stone.

Also, it was an adaptation, which is not canon by definition. The whole point of doing a new version of a story is to do it in a new way. Iron Man revealing his identity right at the start wasn't comics canon. Wolverine and Rogue joining the X-Men before Iceman and Angel did wasn't comics canon. The Joker being named "Jack Napier" and being the killer of Batman's parents wasn't comics canon. Why don't people get that adaptations change things?

 

[Greg Cox]

Anyway, I get that people want a definitive answer right this very minute, but, honestly, we're talking hypotheticals here. S&S has not been sold yet. We have no idea who might or might not buy it. There has been no official announcement about how this might or might not affect the ST books, soon or further down the road.

Again, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[JoeZhang]

This is all very interesting, but a contract is a contract is a contract. I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of all contracts. But I know enough to know that a contract is binding unless someone breaks the terms in some fashion (and I see no evidence of that) or both sides voluntarily end it together.

Well yes and no... this is a bit complex and I'm going to grossly simplify. If a contract is between Party X and Party Y and Party Y is truly independent - yes. However if Party Y is completely owned by X then it is more straightforward to get Y to agree to exit the contact. They might dress up how it happens for accounting and legal reasons but from a strategy and organisational politics point of view it goes on all the time (obviously it's often discussed publicly).

Often part of the reason it's structured like this is for tax and accounting purposes - A simple example is Starbucks. Starbucks UK often makes a pre-tax loss because although it is whole owned subsidiary of Starbucks - it contractually pays Starbucks US for the right to license the Starbucks names and various administration fees.

I myself own two small companies that have a contractual relationship just to reduce my tax liability.

This can be *really* complex if it is decided that the subsidiary is not really a subsidiary but let's not go there...

 

[Christopher]

Well yes and no... this is a bit complex and I'm going to gross simplify. If a contract is between Party X and Party Y and Party Y is truly independent - yes. However if Party Y is completely owned by X then it is more straightforward to get Y to agree to exit the contact. They might dress up how it happens for accounting and legal reasons but from a strategy and organisational politics point of view.

But why are you so convinced they'd want to? They'd still need somebody to publish Trek tie-ins for them, and who has more experience at it than S&S?

After all, ViacomCBS's reported decision to sell off S&S has nothing specifically to do with Star Trek. ST is just one small part of the company's output and thus of its business considerations. It's apparently selling off S&S because it's decided it wants to focus on TV/movie assets and doesn't want to own a publishing company anymore. What happens to the Trek tie-in rights one way or the other is probably totally irrelevant to them. It's a separate question.

 

[JoeZhang]

But why are you so convinced they'd want to?

I am making a technical point there in regards to a generic point about how contracts work (see what I quoted) - notice I do not mention this specific situation in my response or make any commentary about S&S.

So I have no response to your question because it is unrelated to my actual post.

 

[iarann]

Some comments on here assume ViacomCBS corporate cares enough about to whom the licensed work is contracted to that they would make the call to terminate the existing contract. It's possible, it does happen, but we just have no evidence for that at this point and it would not be as simple as some are claiming here. If ViacomCBS no longer owns a publishing arm, I'm not sure why they would step in and cancel a contract, then turn around and hand it to someone else who does not have the same history of working with them on publishing novels. It would be an odd choice, as someone who has actually worked for a corporation and then had my division sold off, our contracts continued and nothing like that was done. Now, when that contract comes up, who knows, but for corporate to step in like that would be pretty strange and not as easy as people in this thread are making out.

And to be clear, an "integrated storytelling" event wouldn't really be an issue one way or the other, considering the other parts of the licenses (comics with IDW, rpgs with Modipheus, etc) aren't in house or connected to each other either. They would just coordinate with the various partners, much the same way Star Wars does with it's different elements. Also to be clear, "integrated storytelling" doesn't mean canon. Even if they call it canon, like some did Countdown, it won't be. Again, I think this argument comes from not understanding how Star Trek tie-in media has functioned for 50+ years now, and naivete when it comes to how it functions for other brands. As much as Star Wars claims "everything is canon now" we know this isn't true. The Last Jedi contradicted a couple of things from tie-in media before the new "canon" was even 5 years old.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

But they can't break the contract without some good cause or something S&S has done to violate the contract.

Of course they can. It's ridiculous we're entertaining some fairytale notion where they can't. They openly break contracts with third parties (like yesterday), so they'll do it here in a heartbeat. And as I said, it's already happened.

It would take one of the writers in this forum maybe 30 seconds to WhatsApp their S&S and/or CBS rep, and find out for themselves. Please then relay the message here.

This exclusivity gossip isn't even the exciting stuff.