Plus, I would assume that the ebooks would still be dependent on the editors, legal departments, etc., that @Greg Cox mentioned above, which are still impacted by the closed offices. So it might not be possible to release just the ebook on the original date, even if they wanted to.
Yep. You still have to process the contract requests, generate P&L reports, get page designs and cover sketches approved, have meetings to discuss marketing and publicity and advertising, get the manuscripts edited, revised, copyedited, and proofread, etc. Granted, a lot of that can be done from home. Even before the pandemic, I rarely set foot in the Tor offices anymore, but I'm just a consultant these days. When entire departments are working from home, while also coping with the pandemic, things are probably not going to happen as fast as they did when you could just walk down the hall to talk to the art department about the new cover designs or whatever, or get your boss to sign off on a subrights deal.
Work from home and meetings on Zoom. That would work for the eBooks. Give me the edited Word document and a hi-res cover image I can convert it to an eBook here at home.
@JWolf: It's already been explained to you by an industry professional of more than three decades' standing why this isn't practical.
I don't see them being that different, both issues deal with releasing an entertainment product in a different format than was originally intended, and both deal with head explodingly complicated contracts and legal issues.
And, as noted, potentially pissing off a great chunk of your industry. Plus, forget STAR TREK for a minute. Imagine telling a Big Name Author that, "Sorry, because of the pandemic, we're going to put the ebook out six months before the print edition, thereby tanking your hardcover sales and ruining your chances of hitting the bestseller lists." Yeah, that's going to fly . . . . It's not about getting the unadorned text out to the world as swiftly as humanly possible. The eBook market and the pBook market are not interchangeable. Granted, there may well be people these days who don't care what format they read a new book in, or where they get it, but that's hardly universal. And, yes, the best interests of authors and agents and bookstores figure in here, as well as any number of contractual arrangements and obligations.
A few more product listings have cropped up at S&S today which are very, very interesting... Scheduled for September, October, November - so, slotting in between the Picard novel "Untitled RE" and the DS9 novel Revenant - a TNG trilogy, currently listed as "Untitled C". (Listings: Untitled C1; Untitled C2; Untitled C3) I'd put good credits on this being the project that Dayton has been referring to as and quite possibly the "plan" that David Mack and others have been alluding to. Be a while before we know more, mind, as we're still waiting to hear details about the novel due out in May.
The full URL of these "Untitled" books tends to include the series title - so, "Untitled C1" is https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Untitled-C1/To-Be-Confirmed-Gallery/Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation/9781982158521. Similarly with the others.
Or if I'm talking hypothetically and don't want to keep saying "he or she" over and over, or, worse yet, automatically default to male pronouns when talking about writers, readers, movie directors, etc. As in: "Whoever ends up directing THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT movie, I hope they have a sense of humor." Which is much less clunky than: "I hope he or she has a sense of humor."
So if this C Trilogy is in fact The Plan, I move that it henceforth be referred to as "Plan C." All for, say "Aye." All against, no one cares what you think. ()
Has it been confirmed somewhere that this in indeed the litverse finale and not some other TNG trilogy?
I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming, though admittedly not certain. https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/a-l...we-know-spoilers-for-entire-lit-verse.306200/