I just wanted to let everyone know that the first 20 pages, which includes all of Chapter 1 and part of 2, of the Typhon Pact ebook The Struggle Within is is now online on Simon & Schuster's website.
First 20 Pages of The Struggle Within Avaiable on S&S.com
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
A pop-up window should appear, with a Flash program that displays the beginning of the book. I don't know how your web browser treats pop-ups, but if memory serves me correctly, you don't care too much for Flash. Either of those could be the source of your problem.
The popup window does popup, everything seems to load except the text.
But it working now. Maybe a glitch on the S&S site.
When I tried it, I had to wait maybe 10-15 seconds before the excerpt appeared in the viewer.
Some nice word-play from T'Ryssa. 
That really whetted my appetite for the book.
I am looking forward to it even more now.
I am looking forward to it even more now.
Very much enjoyed it. Looking forward to the full story. Liked the bit about how the head of state of the Talarian Republic is called the Commander-in-Chief. Between the Federation President, Klingon Chancellor, Romulan Praetor, Cardassian Castellan, Ferengi Grand Nagus, Breen Domo, Tzenkethi Autarch, Gorn Imperator, Tholian Ruling Conclave, and Talarian Commander-in-Chief, I do believe that we now have the title of the head of state or government for every major Alpha/Beta Quadrant state save the Kinshaya. (Unless that's revealed later in the story.)
Slightly curious about how so many protestors got into a ceremony with the Commander-in-Chief though. That would be like Code Pink crashing an event with the President of the United States; security is so tight they'd never get anywhere near the event. How'd the women get past Talarian security in the first place?
Slightly curious about how so many protestors got into a ceremony with the Commander-in-Chief though. That would be like Code Pink crashing an event with the President of the United States; security is so tight they'd never get anywhere near the event. How'd the women get past Talarian security in the first place?
People keep asking me that, but it's not really a reasonable question. It's meant to be an e-book. E-books are a much bigger thing now in the market than they were a few years ago, and this is Simon & Schuster's attempt to get back into that market with Trek. And it's only 25,000 words. It's a novella, not a novel. It's way, way too short to be published as a standalone book.
If it does well, there will probably be more e-books, in which case, maybe, eventually, years from now, there may be enough for a print collection, once the last 8 Corps of Engineers e-books and Slings and Arrows have seen print and once there's a gap in the schedule. Eventually. Someday. But in the near future? No way. That doesn't even make sense.
It's an e-book. That's what it's meant to be. That's the market it's specifically designed for. And I wish people would just accept that.
You of all people Chris should realise that there is no such thing as the wrong or an unreasonable question, it is a fully reasonable question and until it is published on paper instead of digitally, people will ask.
Good for them, hopefully it will work well and every single publication will be done digitally. I for one will then discontinue reading Trek books as I have no intention of reading books on a screen.
As for publishing it in "hard form." How about it being included with another Typhon Pact related story. This has been done before with Star Wars Novels, the ebook Ylseia was included in the paperback reprint of Destinys Way. I'm surprised you are thinking so two dimensionally when it comes to the publishing of one of your stories and it reaching a far wider audience.
Well that is fundamentally wrong from a business viewpoint, I'm sure ebooks are really easy and have their own place, but how is an ebook any different from a normal hard copy book in the way the prose is presented?
From reading the preview linked (and not enjoying it one bit) I can't see any difference. It still has sentences, it still has the structure one finds in a book so proclaiming that it's an ebook and that's what it's meant to be is just wrong. It should be designed for both e and hard copy and not to specifically fit in one or the other. By only aiming it at one type of readership, yes it's a larger audience then it was five years ago, but it's still not a massive audience and by only aiming at that one audience, you are alienating people who would read the story because it has Star Trek or Christopher L Bennent on the "front cover" and I just wish people accepted that!
How is it reasonable to think it's likely that a 25,000-word novella would be published as a standalone book? That hardly ever happens these days. Maybe 40 or 50 years ago, but these days it's only done by very small presses, mostly vanity publishers.
Sure, that could happen eventually. I already said there are long-term possibilities. But as for near-future possibilities, there are no other short-form Typhon Pact stories in existence or known to be scheduled for the next year. If it does happen, it won't be for a while. And it would probably take years to accumulate enough of them to justify a trade compilation. There's just no reason to expect it to come out in print soon.
Because there is virtually no print market for novella-length fiction these days. The few remaining print magazines rarely take anything over 10,000 words, and there's no longer a significant market for standalone print books shorter than 75,000 words. But electronic media don't have those limitations. You talk about appealing to a broader audience -- that's exactly what adding e-books to the line does. It broadens the possibilities and the markets. The Struggle Within could not exist as a print book. Electronic publishing makes it possible.
Is it "fundamentally wrong from a business viewpoint" to publish comic books instead of prose novels? Or to make half-hour TV sitcoms instead of feature-length movies? Or, for that matter, to publish prose tie-ins to a television show instead of just keeping it exclusively on television? How is it bad business to diversify? To give the audience more options? Sure, not every single audience member is going to be equally interested in every format, but the market isn't designed to appeal to only one audience member. If some people are more interested in one format of story and others are more interested in another, then it's obviously good business to reach out to both markets instead of focusing solely on one.
Nonsense. A story is a story regardless of how it's presented. We have print books, we have comic books, we have magazines, we have TV, we have movies, we have live stage shows. What's so horrible about adding even more formats for getting stories out to audiences? The e-reader audience is the same as the print audience, mostly. Just because some people are unwilling to experience Star Trek in e-books rather than television or film or comics or hard-copy books, that doesn't mean they represent the universal response. Certainly not among Star Trek fans, who -- as you'd expect from a franchise whose motto is "To explore strange new worlds" -- are generally early adopters of new technologies (for instance, they were early adopters of online purchasing, which is why it's often hard to find Trek novels on brick-and-mortar store shelves). Plenty of people are happy to read a story regardless of whether it's on real paper or digital paper (and the distinction in look and feel is increasingly nonexistent). So the audience is the same. The audience is for Star Trek, not for flat sheets made of processed wood pulp.
I don't understand this. If you spend pretty much any time on the internet you read stuff on a screen, so why is it so horrible to read books off a screen? And if there is a reason that you can't handle reading off a screen for long periods, then you should really try out an e-reader, thanks to the e-ink screens and the size and shape of the readers, it doesn't really feel or look that different from reading a paperback. Hell, it's lighter than a hardcover, you don't have to worry about faded ink, and you can change the text style and size at will. I still go back and forth between paper and my Nook, and TBH I enjoy reading off of the Nook alot more than I do the paper books.
I don't quite understand the fierce objections myself, but different people like different formats. There are people who only read novels and not comics, or vice-versa. There are people who love TV but don't like to read, and vice-versa. But that's why it's good business to diversify the market. Not everybody who bought the Myriad Universes trades bought the IDW comic under that banner. Not everybody who bought the DS9 relaunch novels bought Divided We Fall. Heck, 99 percent of the people who watch Star Trek on TV or in the movie theater don't buy the books. The goal of doing such tie-ins is to try to build a crossover market -- not just to broaden the appeal to more audiences but to give fans of one medium an incentive to try a different medium they might not otherwise have tried. Not everyone's going to choose to go along with that, and that's their choice, but that doesn't invalidate the goal.
I don't see the appeal of comics (but then I never grew up with them like other kids did, or do) but I love novels. I love books of all sizes (HC, TPB, MMPB) and I like the idea of carrying a library in my pocket so I can read to my heart's content without carrying around a dozen books.
Besides, as mentioned above, the eInk screen is more akin to an actual book than the backlit screens of computers, smart phones, and tablets, which makes it easier on the eyes.
Also, both the eBook readers and tablets are exactly like PADDs. If you think about the technology we have today and extrapolate out to the 24th century, we'll be well ahead of what Picard and his contemporaries have. It appeals to the ST fan in me.
Besides, as mentioned above, the eInk screen is more akin to an actual book than the backlit screens of computers, smart phones, and tablets, which makes it easier on the eyes.
Also, both the eBook readers and tablets are exactly like PADDs. If you think about the technology we have today and extrapolate out to the 24th century, we'll be well ahead of what Picard and his contemporaries have. It appeals to the ST fan in me.
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