• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

2021 books announced

Lately, some of the Star Trek books haven't been getting the Kindle books paired with the Audible audiobooks on the day of release. Both versions have been released on the same day, but the pairing between the Kindle version and the audiobook that allows you to buy the Kindle version and add the narration at a discount hasn't been enabled. It's weird.

I've been listening to audiobooks lately, without time to read (this school year has been difficult for obvious reasons) and I like getting the Kindle book + audiobook deal so I can look up how to spell all the characters and aliens and stuff. Kirsten's last Voyager book had the Kindle pairing enabled right away, but More Beautiful Than Death took months and A Contest of Principles and now The Dark Veil don't have theirs yet.

So I'll listen to this whenever that gets worked out. Unfortunate.
 
At the moment, I don’t think there’s another novel due until April’s Shadows Have Offended, the TNG novel by Cassandra Rose Clarke.
 
Unless I'm mistaken, this is the current release S&S schedule for the rest of the year:

April: TNG - Shadows Have Offended
Mai: DSC novel
June: "OATW" novel (whatever that is)
August: PIC novel
December: DS9 - Revenant
 
Looks like Shadows Have Offended has been pushed out to July so the next novel will be Discovery in May, which seems like leaving money on the table to me when so many readers around the world are locked in their homes bored...

https://www.amazon.ca/Untitled-SHO-Be-Confirmed-Gallery/dp/1982154047
It's probably not unrelated. I've heard that with production slowdowns stemming from the virus, printers are now overbooked, plus the delays in port processing means overseas shipping is at a standstill, with ships at anchor off the coast waiting for docks to open up so they can unload (which means it'll be longer before they head back to Asia to get their next shipment of goods, causing the delays to snowball). Unless they decide to go eBook first and release the print edition later (which is probably contractually disallowed somewhere along the chain), Galley can't do anything about these delays.
 
If anything, it's kind of impressive Star Trek novels have made this long into the pandemic without any prior delays. In a lot of cases, both with tie-ins of other franchises and original fiction in general, novels have been facing delays since late summer 2020. It ain't a perfect world at the moment, everything's getting delayed, postponed or just outright cancelled. Mudslinging ain't going to accomplish anything, especially mudslinging at someone who has managed to keep their original schedule longer than most others have.
 
It’s not mudslinging to question a business decision but I can see the logic of your and David’s arguments. I am a comics reader so I am used to Marvel and DC maintaining weekly comics and books publishing so had not considered that as a factor.
 
Last edited:
I can confirm that the pandemic has caused production delays in the book business: the lockdown affected printing plants, paper manufacturing, bookstore orders, etc. And there's a snowball effect where pushing back the Fall list means pushing back the Winter list, etc. Not to mention the fact that lots of publishing offices are still locked down, with editors and production people and legal departments and what-not all working from home and dealing with the challenges of home schooling, illnesses, short-staffing, etc. All of which inevitably slows things down for awhile.

And, in all honesty, printing and shipping sci-fi novels is not exactly an "essential" service. :)
 
Last edited:
I can confirm that the pandemic has caused production delays in the book business: the lockdown affected printing plants, paper manufacturing, bookstore orders, etc. And there's a snowball effect where pushing back the Fall list means pushing back the Winter list, etc. Not to mention the fact that lots of publishing offices are still locked down, with editors and production people and legal departments and what-not all working from home and dealing with the challenges of home schooling, illnesses, short-staffing, etc. All of which inevitably slows things down for awhile.

And, in all honesty, printing and shipping sci-fi novels is not exactly an "essential" service. :)

Fair.
 
It's probably not that simple, there are probably a lot of contractual issues that would need to be worked out before that could happen. Just look at how much of a shitstorm WB stirred up when they decided to release all of their movies on streaming alongside the theatrical releases.
 
So get the eBooks out now and the pBooks when possible.

I can only speculate about decisions being made way above my pay grade, but I imagine that not pissing off the entire pBook marketplace would be a consideration. "Screw you, traditional bookstores and dealers; we're going to cut you out of the loop here because the printing plants and shipping companies are backed up. You don't mind if the ebook versions of those potential bestsellers go on sale months before you get a chance to sell them, do you? That's not going to sour our longstanding professional relationships and accounts, is it? You're not going to cancel your advance orders just because the print editions are going to be old news by the time they hit the shelves, are you?"

Something to think about at least.

In addition, there are still plenty of readers who prefer pBooks to eBooks so it's not as though they're interchangeable. Just imagine the arguments on this board when the eBook readers start spilling spoilers about new Trek books that won't be published as pBooks for months. :)

Why should the eBook enthusiasts get the books first? That doesn't seem fair . . . .
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top