I've said it every time this has come up and I'll say it again, I would pick up a Kelvin novel in an instant. From what we saw it's a very different type of ship from what we've seen before, with a connection to Kirk through his parents, it has a captain who many people seemed to like in the little bit he was in, and it's in an unexplored era of the franchise. I really think given the abilities of the writers involved with Trek Lit right now all of those things add up to a lot of potential for a book or series of books.
Damned, restless spirits, methinks . . . (Then again, I was watching a Dark Shadows marathon last night!)
Not Robau related, but new news might hint at why the post-STXI novels were cancelled: Spoiler: Star Trek XII Leonard Nimoy is reprising his role as Spock Prime! http://trekmovie.com/2012/04/30/major-star-trek-sequel-spoilers-confirmed/ ....may well be incompatible with Greg's unpublished "The Hazard of Concealing". I.E. the cancellations might really be about continuity.
As I've pointed out before, if continuity were the reason, they would've just reworked whatever novel had the problem, not cancelled all four. Not to mention that at the time the books were suspended, they didn't even have a script yet -- besides which, Spoiler: new movie they certainly wouldn't have secured a guarantee of Nimoy's return that long ago, given that they've apparently only concluded talks for that very recently. By the way, on the subject of where and when the UESPA arrowhead insignia (as "Friendship One" established it to be) was first used by Starfleet, look at this: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Starfleet_uniform_(22nd_century)#Examples_of_rank_insignia In the Earth Starfleet of the 2150s, the patches for Crewman ratings (as seen on characters like Cutler and Daniels) included a tiny arrowhead. So the emblem was already in use even then.
They may not have had a script in 2010, but it's quite possible they had a rough idea of what ground they hoped to cover in the sequel. And even if they hoped to include you know who - even if such a thing were far from definite at the time. Add to that Bad Robot's rampant secrecy, and it's even plausibe they'd indefinitely delay all four novels, rather than tip anyone off that a specific one featured a plot element they themselves were planning on picking up in STXII.
Spoiler: Trek XII spoilers within Wasn't Nimoy retired at the time the XI tie-in novels were pulled? Yeah, I know the guy goes in and out of retirement so often that no one really believed it, but still it would be silly to think he'd be guaranteed back then. Of course, that whole book fiasco never made sense to me anyway. If they were afraid the novels would step on Bad Robot's toes and interfere with XII's development, why were they greenlit and written to begin with? Couldn't this concern have been raised a lot sooner than six months before the books release dates?
All I can say is that most of the speculations I hear about why the books were pulled are wrong. It wasn't about conflicts with the second movie.
Just tell us then or stop attention-whoring. If you are not allowed to tell anyone then just stop teasing us mere mortals here.