Yeah, Amazon's search function is horrible. One wonders how these things get worse over time but it starts to make sense when you realize they're no longer primarily a bookstore and that their business is pushing sponsored items, Amazon-brand items, and popular items rather than helping people find the specific thing they're actually looking for. The more they can shove in front of your eyes the more likely you are to realize you always wanted that sponsored product, I guess?
Right? I wonder -- is it because they're not selling enough to be profitable? I wonder whether, counterintuitively, having more books would help sell better -- it may be difficult to maintain interest when there are such lengthy gaps in between new books. Or maybe the newer generation of Trek fans doesn't comprise readers to the extent that previous generations in a time of less content did. Or if it's got nothing to do with that and it's just the supply chain issues have screwed things up and pushed the publishing schedule so far off the air schedule for the shows and they're recalibrating?
I only have limited, third-hand knowledge of the situation, but I'd say that supply issues are probably the only factor you mentioned that actually are involved in the delay. A lot of the time, business negotiations and decisions are affected by factors that the general public has no awareness of, matters much deeper than the tip of the iceberg we see, so it's generally best not to speculate. It's worth remembering that this is not the first time the publication of new Trek books has been delayed due to behind-the-scenes issues. There was a similar delay back in 2017 or so. This time I'd guess it's probably worse due to the paper shortage.
David Mack also suggested that uncertainty around the proposed Random House acquisition of Simon and Schuster, which was an open question for much of 2022 before being canceled in November, made the editors reluctant to commission anything for this year. I think it’s hard not to look at the overall trajectory of the Trek line in recent years without concluding that it simply isn’t the priority for the publisher that it once was. The things that get disproportionately impacted by shortages and other uncertainties are the things that matter less to the bottom line. The books based on the newer series seem to be doing OK— four hardcover Picard novels in 2.5 years is a pretty good clip—but otherwise, I don’t know.
I honestly think the hardest thing is that the literature does not have "free reign" anymore so on top of all the larger questions, this also makes things much more difficult than it use to be.
How much of a priority was it, though? Simon & Schuster is a huge publishing house, putting out more than 2000 titles per year. Even in the heyday when there were close to 30 Trek books published per year, that would've been no more than 1.5 percent of the company's output, assuming the numbers were similar. I doubt they've ever had a really major impact on S&S's bottom line. Yet they've kept the license for more than 40 years now. The market has been changing in ways that have nothing to do with Star Trek. The mass-market paperback industry has dried up, largely supplanted by e-books, and with the higher price point of trade paperbacks and hardcovers, there's more incentive to do a smaller number of bigger stories. And it just makes sense to focus on the currently active series. The books lacked free rein (it's a horse metaphor) during the time that TNG through ENT were on the air, but that's when they were coming out the most frequently. And I don't think it's that much more difficult. The books have always been obligated to stay consistent with canon and earn the approval of the licensing people at the studio; and when new canon was sparse and the books developed a tight continuity, we had to make an effort to stay consistent with the other books. So the challenges are still much the same.
"The High Country" and "Somewhere to Belong" (based on the description) seem to be the first steps towards old-style "bonus episode" novels rather than filling in specific off-format gaps before shows or between seasons, as had been the practice with the new-series novels so far. That could be an indication that the novel line is shifting back to the pre-relaunch philosophy that would allow for more books coming about independently, rather than having to wait for the shows to leave an open question to answer or a conspicuous open area in the timeline.
I don't think it has anything to do with any overall "philosophy," beyond the usual one of finding places to fit stories into the shows' continuity. SNW's episodic format is more conducive to plugging in novels than the serialized season arcs of other current shows. And Somewhere to Belong's description suggests it takes place in the gap between DSC seasons 3 & 4, a gap during which Discovery was carrying out regular missions for Starfleet for several months, so there's plenty of room for "routine" episodic novels.
Not possible now that the novels have switched exclusively to TPB. The most they seemed willing to do before these supply chain shortages popped up was eight a year. And I wouldn't be surprised if that gets knocked down to six after the shortage situation is resolved.
It would be nice if they started up e-book originals again. That seems like it would be a handy way around the paper shortages.
'Free reign' is a (relatively) new thing if you mean something like the DS9 relaunch. Trek books had been written for decades by then. Hundreds of them likely. With multiple Trek TV series ongoing throughout.
That's an interesting question, numerically. I think Trek books might've been broadly unconstrained longer than they weren't, on balance, considering things like the radical changes to the setting from Spock Must Die!, the '80s novel continuity, and then the relaunch era (which you could consider as starting as early as New Frontier in 1997).
Naturally the books are more constrained when there's new screen Trek in production than when there isn't. The constant is the requirement to stay consistent with the screen canon. If the entire canon is in the rear-view mirror, you just have to worry about consistency with what came before, and you're free to speculate about the future or fill in unexplored worldbuilding. But if there's new canon in production, you have to let it take the lead in establishing those things and try to avoid stepping on its toes as it does so. The Bantam novels from the '70s were written when Trek had ended and it was assumed it wouldn't be coming back, so they were free to do pretty much what they wanted, though they made no effort to be consistent with each other. The early Pocket novels from the '80s were published when only the occasional movie came out every few years, so they were pretty free to fill in the gaps in the universe their own way. Once TNG and the spinoffs came along, the books in the '90s were under tighter constraints. By the '00s-'10s, there was no 23rd- or 24th-century Trek in production, so the books had free rein there. Now we're back in a very active era of screen Trek, with the books affected accordingly.
It'd depend whether you were mentioning by length of time or volume of books within. Certainly there were more Star Trek books written and released in the first six months of 1996 than were written probably in the last 4-5 years, right?
Here's what was published in the first half of 1996: 1996 January TOS Twilight's End 1996 January TNG Dragon's Honor 1996 February DS9 The Long Night 1996 February VOY The Murdered Son 1996 February DS9 YA Gypsy World 1996 March TNG Rogue Saucer 1996 April TOS HC Shatner: The Return 1996 April VOY Ghost of a Chance 1996 April TNG YA Loyalties 1996 May TOS The Rings of Tautee 1996 May TNG Possession 1996 May Star Trek: Klingon 1996 June DS9 Objective: Bajor 1996 June VOY Cybersong 1996 June DS9 YA Highest Score And here is the last few years: 2019 January DIS The Way to the Stars 2019 July DIS The Enterprise War 2019 December DIS Dead Endless 2020 February PIC The Last Best Hope 2020 March TOS The Higher Frontier 2020 April ST09 The Unsettling Stars 2020 June TOS Agents of Influence 2020 July DIS Die Standing 2020 August ST09 More Beautiful Than Death 2020 October VOY To Lose the Earth 2020 November TOS A Contest of Principles 2021 January PIC The Dark Veil 2021 May DIS Wonderlands 2021 June TOS Living Memory 2021 July TNG Shadows Have Offended 2021 August PIC Rogue Elements 2021 September Coda: Moments Asunder 2021 October Coda: The Ashes of Tomorrow 2021 November Coda: Oblivion's Gate 2021 December DS9 Revenant 2022 September PIC Second Self 2022 December TOS Harm's Way 2023 February SNW The High Country 2023 May DIS Somewhere to Belong
The book market in general has changed radically between those times. It's not unlike the change in the TV industry. Before, you had a larger number of installments coming out regularly, many of which were fairly routine or mediocre. Now, you have a smaller number of installments that tend to be bigger stories.
In the past there'd be a book or two a month that'd be a reprint, too. Those days are gone for the Trek line at that rate.