Why the sudden lack of new releases?

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I admit that back a few years ago, when Pocket was releasing two ST novels a month, it was probably too much, too fast, but this is starting to feel like the long dry spell between Spock Must Die and Spock:Messiah. Anybody know (other than that there are "Abramsverse" novels in the works) what's up with Pocket?

 

[F. King Daniel]

This was meant to be the time the four post-STXI novels (Refugees, To Seek a Newer World, Hazards of Concealing and Greater than Death) were to be released.

They were cancelled

The end.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Anybody know (other than that there are "Abramsverse" novels in the works) what's up with Pocket?

Lucky you having absolutely nothing on your "to read" pile.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/2010

 

[pookha]

oh i have a to read pile .
but in the past several years i bought a lot of trek and now i see very little.

 

[Therin of Andor]

oh i have a to read pile .
but in the past several years i bought a lot of trek and now i see very little.

Well, apart from the current (short) hiatus in new novels, due only to the hold-back on the four JJ-related titles, Pocket has continued to churn out over twelve books a year for a long, long time - and in recent years the word counts are significantly longer.

You may "see very little" in bookshops, but many ST fans were early adopters of online bookshops.

 

[Cicero]

Anybody know (other than that there are "Abramsverse" novels in the works) what's up with Pocket?

Lucky you having absolutely nothing on your "to read" pile.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/2010

Until you posted that, I'd forgotten that I haven't bought a Star Trek book since December - itself one of only two I purchased last year (the Vanguard novels).

For what it's worth, excluding books I didn't like, which I think I've done better avoiding since Destiny, I've bought the following since I began reading the Deep Space Nine relaunch (some books I bought in 2002 were released in 2000 and 2001):

2000: 1 (A Stitch In Time)
2001: 3 (Avatar I, Avatar II, Abyss)
2002: 3 (Twilight, This Gray Spirit, Cathedral)
2003: 3 (Rising Son, Serpents Among the Ruins, Unity)
2004: 3 (Paradigm and The Lotus Flower, A Time to Kill, A Time To Heal)
2005: 2 (Satisfaction Is Not Guaranteed and Olympus Descending, Harbinger)
2006: 3 (Warpath, Provenance of Shadows, The Empty Chair) and 2 reprints (Federation, Rihannsu)
2007: 1 (Reap the Whirlwind)
2008: 1 (Day of the Vipers)
2009: 1 (Precipice)
2010: 0

I'm hopeful of the Typhon Pact books due out later this year (as the list above suggests, I usually like books by their authors), but don't know whether I'll be interested in any stories set in the aftermath of Destiny.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You may "see very little" in bookshops, but many ST fans were early adopters of online bookshops.

Yes, we have been, myself included, and what's the result? We frequently have ST books before the neighborhood bookstores do, so it's not a profitable enough line for the bookstores to bother carrying in any depth, and so in the neighborhood bookstores, especially the chain bookstores, SW outnumbers ST 2 to 1 in terms of shelf space, and other genre stuff, including some that's garbage, or thinly-veiled extremist propaganda, or both, outnumbers both.

 

[Thrawn]

The real answer to your question, though, is that at the end of 2008, editor Marco Palmieri was laid off, meaning where once there were two major Trek editors, now there was one: Margaret Clark. Then, about a year later, SHE was laid off too, leading to the Trek books being edited by someone new without prior experience with the line, Jaime Costas. Then, the Abramsverse books were cancelled...and then Jaime Costas went on maternity leave, to boot!

Basically, from an editorial standpoint, just about everything that could've gone wrong has, recently, leading to a few books being delayed from last year to this year, then this year's releases getting reduced...then four of them cancelled...then next year's releases getting reduced, too. Not much that anyone can do about it though.

 

[Christopher]

^The editorial layoffs really weren't a factor in the delays. After all, we had those four months all filled up despite the editorial changes, and then the Abramsverse books were shelved. And that happened so late in the game that it wouldn't have been possible to replace them with new material even if Marco and Margaret had still been around. So it's really not fair to Jaime to say this has anything to do with her lack of experience (which isn't really valid, since she has experience with Pocket's other tie-in lines and worked as Marco's assistant on Trek and other lines in years past).

 

[flandry84]

Still it seems a funny way to run a railroad...(does that expression make me sound ancient?).
The peripatetic nature of the publishing business has been explained on here often enough but still,given the fact that the Star Trek line is just that,a line of products,it seems lax in the extreme that no backup plan was in place.
Don't get me wrong,I have plenty of books in my 'to read'pile(and how)and if the delay were to weed out future gak like 'Inception' then ,that would be okay.

 

[Thrawn]

^The editorial layoffs really weren't a factor in the delays. After all, we had those four months all filled up despite the editorial changes, and then the Abramsverse books were shelved. And that happened so late in the game that it wouldn't have been possible to replace them with new material even if Marco and Margaret had still been around. So it's really not fair to Jaime to say this has anything to do with her lack of experience (which isn't really valid, since she has experience with Pocket's other tie-in lines and worked as Marco's assistant on Trek and other lines in years past).

That's all true, but I was actually referring to those as separate incidents. Marco's layoff caused Seven Deadly Sins, Myriad Universes, and the next SCE to be delayed a year; I'm pretty sure Margaret's layoff caused Typhon Pact to be delayed a month and New Frontier to be delayed about 6 months; and the schedule for next year has 11 MMPBs (two of which are reprints) and 1 trade, instead of the 12 and 3 planned for this year, and the 12 and 7 originally planned for last year. It does keep shrinking.

And then on TOP of that, the 4 Abramsverse books were cancelled.

 

[Christopher]

The peripatetic nature of the publishing business has been explained on here often enough but still,given the fact that the Star Trek line is just that,a line of products,it seems lax in the extreme that no backup plan was in place.

What we're getting is the backup plan. There are two CoE reprint anthologies, just the sort of thing that was being kept in reserve to fill a gap in the schedule. And there's a reprint of Nightshade, an old TNG novel by an author who's now highly famous and popular, which I imagine is something the folks at Pocket have been waiting for an opportunity to do (frankly I'm surprised it took them this long).

But even backup plans have their limits. Delays are an inevitable part of the publishing process, but getting a block of four whole books pulled all at once, and so late in the game, is a rather more extreme situation than anyone could've realistically anticipated. So we get the unfortunate situation of a sizeable gap in the publishing schedule. But that doesn't mean anyone was lax or incompetent. It just means that no complex process can be guaranteed to work perfectly 100 percent of the time. Pocket's been publishing Trek fiction for nearly 30 years now, and it's been a smooth-running operation for the most part with only occasional glitches. This glitch is bigger than most, but that's just the law of averages at work. It doesn't mean the overall system is fundamentally flawed; if anything, the lack of precedent for a glitch of this magnitude in three decades of publication suggests just the opposite, that the system works very well. It's just going through a rough patch.

 

[Thrawn]

^ I don't think anyone is trying to imply incompetence or laxity; I'm sorry if any of my posts came across that way. Indeed, it's just a rough patch. It's just been a rather large one.

Though given the recession, it's hardly the only rough patch that businesses I love have been hitting lately.

 

[Therin of Andor]

especially the chain bookstores, SW outnumbers ST 2 to 1 in terms of shelf space, and other genre stuff, including some that's garbage, or thinly-veiled extremist propaganda, or both, outnumbers both.

It's cyclic. There's always an ebb and flow. Also, the six "Star Wars" movies have been incredibly popular with the general public, and pumped up by the recent animated series. Of course they'll often give more shelf space to SW!

Here in Sydney, I was rather surprised that the "Star Wars" sections in many regular bookshops actually shrank during the lead-up to the premiere of JJ's "Star Trek". Simon & Schuster started air-freighting the newest ST titles for about six months (as opposed to the regular three-month delay caused by sea-freighting them). ST outnumbered SW by about 2:1 for several months. I even posted some pics here.

Since then, the vacant spaces left by SW and ST have been filled with "Doctor Who" and "Twilight" novels.

It's cyclic.

Indeed, it's just a rough patch. It's just been a rather large one.

People also forget that we had several months this year with two* Pocket releases. Imagine the furore if some of those were delayed just to fill the later gaps.

 

[Daddy Todd]

People also forget that we had several months this year with two original MMPB releases.

Well, if by "several months" you mean exactly ONE month, then I take your meaning. It was April, which had 2 MMPB originals; The Children of Kings (a Captain Pike novel) and The Needs of the Many (the Star Trek Online book.) Every other month this year had/has 1 or fewer MMPBs scheduled, and 1 of those was a reprint of the most recent New Frontier trade paperback.

 

[TerraUnam]

Nobody expected a nasty recession of a kind we haven't seen in a very, very long time either. It's eaten away at consumer demand like worm that never stops.

It threw a wrench into so many works.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Well, if by "several months" you mean exactly ONE month, then I take your meaning. It was April, which had 2 MMPB originals; The Children of Kings (a Captain Pike novel) and The Needs of the Many (the Star Trek Online book.).

Well pardon me for typing MMPB when I should have just said "books" and been more correct. In any case, "Seven Deadly Sins" had seven stories in it, although it was a trade. The NF MMPB would have been new for many. April had "Unspoken Truth" (not the Pike novel) together with "The Needs of the Many". But my point stands; there was plenty to buy and read.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Well, at least Out of the Cocoon is now out of the cocoon. And having read a couple pages of the lead (and title) novella, I look forward to finding out what went wrong with the shotgun marriage of the Bringloidi and the Mariposans, and how the SCE will set it right.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Well, if by "several months" you mean exactly ONE month, then I take your meaning. It was April, which had 2 MMPB originals; The Children of Kings (a Captain Pike novel) and The Needs of the Many (the Star Trek Online book.).

Well pardon me for typing MMPB when I should have just said "books" and been more correct.

You are hereby pardoned. I didn't mean to piss you off, if indeed I did. Some fans only buy MMPBs, so a month with only a trade paperback is a month without a new book for those readers.

In any case, "Seven Deadly Sins" had seven stories in it, although it was a trade. The NF MMPB would have been new for many. April had "Unspoken Truth" (not the Pike novel) together with "The Needs of the Many". But my point stands; there was plenty to buy and read.

D'OH! you're right, of course, about Unspoken Truth and The Needs of the Many coming out in the same month. Mea culpa!

Indeed, there has been plenty to buy & read this year. Sadly, the one new Trek book I've managed to read so far this year was the deeply disappointing Inception. Here's hoping the movie of the same name, which came out today, proves to be more enjoyable...

 

[Sxottlan]

Sadly, the one new Trek book I've managed to read so far this year was the deeply disappointing Inception. Here's hoping the movie of the same name, which came out today, proves to be more enjoyable...

The movie is incredibly good.