Summer nuTrek novels pulled-TrekMovie.Com

[pookha]

There's no guarantee the second movie will do anywhere near the business of the first one

Guess I'm not understanding why that's so incredibly funny. While it's not always true (And Orci and Kurtzman's other franchise managed to escape it), sequels generally produce diminishing returns, sometimes to a drastic degree.

the sequel will have a lot of good word of mouth and memories from the first film.
also the movie was hurt by only being in most imax theatres for two weeks due to scheduling conflicts.

i suspect a lot of the imax theatres will try and clear a month for the next one.

as for sequels.. that often depends on how much of the original team has to do with the sequel.
i suspect the ones that didnt do as well had some missing pieces that made people suspect the sequel wouldnt be as good.

but then it seems a lot of genre films that have the major players (director, writers, actors) in place often do pretty well for sequels.

now to maybe have something a little different in the current conversation i would like to toss out a question.

if they were looking for a novel that had been out of print for a long time to fill the gap which one would you like to see??

 

[JD]

I would have to go with the people who have said that if this were to happen it should be one of the books Orci and Kurtzman have mentioned.

 

[Defcon]

There's no guarantee the second movie will do anywhere near the business of the first one

While I agree that almost everything CRA has posted in this forum so far is utter nonsense, I'm not really sure why you choose to laugh at the one thing where he actually has a point.

No one can say yet if Star Trek (2009) was a one hit wonder or if sequels will be able to hold or even exceed the numbers of the first movie. I enjoyed the movie, and the movie had legs, but it's not sure yet if it also gave the franchise new legs.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm not really sure why you choose to laugh...

I really don't know. I laughed out loud when I read his post, and I figured I'd toss my mirth into the ring. After all the bizarre posts in this thread, I happened to find that one hilarious. If he'd said it in a crowded pub, across a tabletop, I'd have laughed then too.

So pardon me for sharing.

 

[MNM]

Undoubtedly these books would've sold very well. Alan Dean Foster's novelization was the first ST book in ages to make the New York Times bestseller list (I think it was 15th in trade-paperback fiction in its opening week). Booksellers order books by a given author based on the sales of that author's previous book. So it's a cinch that Alan's Refugees would've gotten ordered in huge numbers. And that means the next book in the series (mine) would've gotten ordered in similar numbers, and so on down the line. That's why they decided to put Alan's book first -- to get a Foster-sized bump for the rest of us. There is every reason to expect these books would've sold a lot better than normal for Trek novels.

There's no reason to assume that really. Novelisations are not the same as original novels set within the universe. Just because Foster's novelisation of the film did well doesnt mean these four would have had a similar performance.

 

[Christopher]

There's no reason to assume that really. Novelisations are not the same as original novels set within the universe. Just because Foster's novelisation of the film did well doesnt mean these four would have had a similar performance.

Like I said: bookstores order books by a certain author based on the sales of the previous book by the same author. To vendors, a Trek novel by Alan Dean Foster is a Trek novel by Alan Dean Foster, regardless of whether it's a novelization or an original tie-in. And what goes for authors goes for series as well; the whole reason ADF's book was going first (even though mine was commissioned first) was because it was a given that he'd get the most orders and that would give the rest of us a bump because we're in the same series.

I'm not talking about final sales here, I'm talking about orders by book vendors. A publishing company can't be certain how well a book will sell, but it can make informed predictions about how well a book is likely to be ordered, how prominent it will be on bookstore shelves, and in this case Pocket had every reason to expect that these particular books would get more orders and more attention than any other Trek books this year. So if we're talking about Pocket's expectations for these books' performance relative to other Trek books, it's just plain wrong to assume that Pocket would've expected them to do worse. No, we can't be certain they'd actually sell better, but the topic here, the assumption Captain April is making that is so staggeringly, spectacularly wrong, is about the publisher's expectations.

 

[MNM]

a Trek novel by Alan Dean Foster is a Trek novel by Alan Dean Foster, regardless of whether it's a novelization or an original tie-in. And what goes for authors goes for series as well;

Maybe, or maybe a Foster Trek book thats isnt a novelisation of a successful movie, and is instead an original novel set within the Trek universe will lead them to order the same amount of books they normally do for a Trek book. And even if they did order a high number for his book, that doesnt mean they would order similar numbers for the others. At the end of the day, I have no idea how much these books would or wouldnt have sold, beyond the fact I know I wasnt going to buy them. I simply dont think it is safe to assume that because the novelisation of the movie sold well then these books would sell well too because of that.

 

[Christopher]

^Look, this is how the business works. This is a fact of life in publishing: book vendors order a given author's new book based on the performance of that author's previous book. That's a persistent fact of life that can be disastrous for a writer, because if one book doesn't sell well, there's little chance of getting better sales for that author's next book, regardless of its subject matter. This is why many authors end up using pseudonyms -- if one name gets a bad reputation, you can use a different one and start over. Or if you work in two different genres with differing sales expectations, you use different names in each so that one won't be hurt by the lesser performance of the other. This is a basic fact that has a lot of impact on the business of what we writers do. It's not something I'm making up.

As I said, the reason why ADF's novel was placed first was specifically because of the expectation that it would sell extremely well because of Foster's name. Again, remember that the topic under discussion is not actual sales, but the publisher's expectations about the performance of these books. And I know that the publisher's expectations, or at least Margaret Clark's expectations, were that a Foster Trek novel would get ordered extremely well. I know that because Margaret told me that was what they were thinking. Pocket's expectations for these books were high. So when Captain April proposes that Pocket's expectations for these books are poor, I can state with confidence that he is wrong.

 

[TerriO]

Do you even read what other people post? They haven't dropped-- they're the same.

They were selling better. Now they're not. Thus, dropped.

Have you bothered to take into account that general drops in sales are plaguing both comics AND publishing at the moment? Not every issue/series is getting hit, I know, but many are. Sales just aren't what they used to be across the board.

Just looking at one line is narrowing your focus to the point of myopia. There are overarcing trends to be considered as well, and those are trends that experienced marketing people would take into account. Their main question would be how to market the product to a generally decreasing audience.

And before I get accused of being a JJ-ite, no, I didn't care that much for the movie.

Care to just resort to the "because I said so" to save yourself some headaches? Or are there some arms to your argument that haven't been proven wrong yet?

 

[snakespeare]

Obviously, this continues to be a mystery and people don't want to let it go. We all love a mystery.

But... bookstores do not use toy store sales for projections. Huge bookstore chains and the services that stock drug and grocery stores simply buy in volume based on previous sales of other books. Toy sales are irrelevant. Smaller bookstores, like Mom & Pop places, if they've been around for a while, know what their customers want and they might read the catalogs and mags for ideas, but their choices are completely unrelated to toy sales.

As already pointed out, this sort of cost is miniscule in the whole CBS spending budget, and most of the money is already spent. One way or the other, they will find a way to make these books turn a profit. I am sure we will see them someday.

Still, it remains a mystery why they would cancel them, mostly because nobody wants to believe the statement from Pocket, that they wanted to step back and allow Abrams to develop his "vision". Especially because Roberto Orci denied that he (or the rest of the team, by inference) had anything to do with the decision. Though I don't see why we should believe him, either.

I just want to reiterate that I liked the movie, I like the fact that the franchise got a shot in the arm, but I find the Orci/Kurtzman team to be full of crap when they talk about Trek. To each his own, but I for one don't believe them or trust them. Not after what they did to Xena. So when the question is asked, who's not being honest with us, I do not assume that Orci's statement can by taken to be a blanket denial for the entire film writing crew. I'm not that trusting.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Do you even read what other people post? They haven't dropped-- they're the same.

They were selling better. Now they're not. Thus, dropped.

And I would point out, Robert, that's expected.

There's always a drop in comics sales between issue #1 and #2. And a drop in sales between issue #2 and #3. That's normal.

 

[MNM]

^Look, this is how the business works.

Yes...the need for the "look" at the start, as though you are trying to explain something simple to to a moron is needed because...? You were confident that these books would sell well, as you said, and I quote, "Undoubtedly these books would've sold very well.", and your basis for that as far as I could see from what you wrote, was that a novelisation by one of these four authors did well. I wasnt as confident in that assertion as you are. If I am wrong I am wrong. I guess we shall never know now anyway will we.

So when Captain April proposes that Pocket's expectations for these books are poor, I can state with confidence that he is wrong.

He proposed someone, somewhere in the huge infrasturcture involved with Trek, and specifically Trek related to the new movies arbitarily cancelled it because they werent confident of good sales based on sales of other tie-in merc and wanted to cut their losses. Doesnt necessarily mean it was from someone in Pocket. Personally I dont think potential sales had anything to do with it, most likely someone with enough power related to the movie found out about them and said "no", leaving Pocket to take the fall, and April is probably completely wrong with his theories, but seriously, some of the attutude directed towards him in this thread has been embarassing.

 

[snakespeare]

^People get frustrated when others "beg the question". His theory is extremely unlikely. He thinks marketing decision are made AFTER the decision to pay for a book and set a printing schedule and release the catalog. He is wrong. Yet he continues to beg the question. So they get irritated. It's only natural. When someone doesn't accept that people with experience know more than people who make guesses, it's just mind-boggling. Time for someone to say FAIL, I think.

But it remains a mystery, and as such, we can't seem to let it go. I believe the only cause of the mystery is the contradiction between the official statement and Roberto Orci's comment that he had nothing to do with it, which we infer means that Abrams had nothing to do with it. Without that contradiction, most people would accept the official statement.

Instead, we are left to believe that somebody is lying somewhere, and now we can't let it go.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^Look, this is how the business works. This is a fact of life in publishing: book vendors order a given author's new book based on the performance of that author's previous book. That's a persistent fact of life that can be disastrous for a writer, because if one book doesn't sell well, there's little chance of getting better sales for that author's next book, regardless of its subject matter. This is why many authors end up using pseudonyms -- if one name gets a bad reputation, you can use a different one and start over. Or if you work in two different genres with differing sales expectations, you use different names in each so that one won't be hurt by the lesser performance of the other. This is a basic fact that has a lot of impact on the business of what we writers do. It's not something I'm making up.

And he's not. One of the ways book publishers, bookstore buyers, agents, and the whole publishing industry keep track of sales is with Nielsen BookScan.

As Christopher says previous author performance is what matters in the publishing world, tie-in or whatever, and not the toy line sales figures of another industry. Or even the performance of a franchise as a whole.

There's a lot of assumptions going around. As we say in journalism, "once you assume, you make an ass out of you and me."

 

[Dayton Ward]

More like "You make an ass out of you and umptions."

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^

Postscript to my previous post:

For those interested in knowing more about the publishing industry in general, check out the Pimp My Novel blog, written by someone who works in the sales department of a publishing house. And for a more specific genre look, check out SFLit author John Scalzi's Whatever blog.

For the agent side of things, with some good publishing insights as well, check out Nathan Bransford's blog. He is an agent with Curtis Brown Ltd. in San Francisco, and a nice chap who I've had the pleasuring of meeting.

 

[JD]

Or if you work in two different genres with differing sales expectations, you use different names in each so that one won't be hurt by the lesser performance of the other. This is a basic fact that has a lot of impact on the business of what we writers do. It's not something I'm making up.

Ah, so that's why they do that. I've noticed several authors doing this, but I had thought that maybe they were simply trying to keep books in each genre separate from the others.

 

[DimesDan]

Or if you work in two different genres with differing sales expectations, you use different names in each so that one won't be hurt by the lesser performance of the other. This is a basic fact that has a lot of impact on the business of what we writers do. It's not something I'm making up.

Ah, so that's why they do that. I've noticed several authors doing this, but I had thought that maybe they were simply trying to keep books in each genre separate from the others.

Thats the case between Iain Banks and Iain M Banks. I can't remember the different genres though, one is Sci Fi and the other are Thrillers I think.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Thats the case between Iain Banks and Iain M Banks. I can't remember the different genres though, one is Sci Fi and the other are Thrillers I think.

A better example might be fantasy writer David Farland. He used to be Dave Wolverton (wrote a Star Wars novel under that name) but after very successfully rebranding and relaunching himself as Farland, some of his earlier SF novels have been reprinted under the Farland name. (Not the SW novel, as far as I know, but the trilogy he wrote right after that - The Golden Queen, I think, was one of the titles.)

Book marketing is weird...

 

[Therin of Andor]

I believe the only cause of the mystery is the contradiction between the official statement and Roberto Orci's comment that he had nothing to do with it, which we infer means that Abrams had nothing to do with it.

No, Orci said neither he nor the other members of his writing team were behind the postponement. JJ may well have asked that no post-movie tie-ins come out yet, and Orci's statement would still be true.