2019 Releases

[Scout101]

Guess i can't say for sure on that one. I was operating under the assumption that it would just be the same general story length that would have been published as a MMPB previously. Is there a conscious effort for the stories going forward to be longer stories? No idea if they had come to the writers, said the format was changing, and to work bigger word counts or not.

Assumed it was otherwise status quo, which means sometimes the stories are a little shorter, sometimes you get the thicker MMPB, but it was a fluid range. If the word counts are going up, that's something. Dunno that 15% increase in word count justifies 300% price increase, but at least it's a carrot.

 

[JD]

Definitely sucks, as it's a big price increase. Also will be a bigger form factor than most of the other 600(?) trek books on my bookshelves. Price jump is even worse, because I always pre-ordered them from Amazon, and most ended up costing about 5.50 after they matched the lowest price pre-release. So triple the price, but books won't be longer, just a little taller...

Annoying in that the cost to actually print the book is just about nothing, or at least that's the story of why eBooks aren't cheaper. Printing it bigger allows for a bigger price point, so I'm sure some bean counter did the tradeoffs for lost sales vs. increased profit on remaining sales, etc. Myself, i'm torn. But when the Star Wars books went all-HC, that was my point where i stopped buying and started getting them from the library. We'll see how this goes, but annoyed at the price jumping so high. to be fair, they DID hold the line a long time, and yes it's still cheap entertainment, and yes I like supporting the fine folks in here that write the stories, but still...

The price increase is definitely annoying, and it does make me kind of hope that we don't get one book every month. I've got other forms of entertainment I want to use my money for, so I might limit myself on bit more on some things.
It kind of makes me wish they would offer an annual subscription service where I could just make one payment and then get all of that year's books as they come out.

 

[Thrawn]

Why do you think they won't be longer? Trade paperbacks typically have about 15% more words per page than MMPBs, some 350-400 words, and it looks like the page counts on the Discovery TPBs have been in the 300-400 range. So if that's typical, that's something like 100-150,000 words per book, while Trek MMPBs were generally in the 80-120K range.

This is an empirical question. Dayton - was your wordcount target higher for this most recent book? Or anyone who's written a Disco novel?

 

[Scout101]

I can kinda see that, but also kinda hate that everything is going to a subscription service (and also fracturing so that you have to subscribe to a million different things).

End of the day, it's cheap, quality entertainment, so even at $16, i'm only paying $4-5 an hour to be entertained, which isn't bad. And goes down if you read it again, although i find myself re-reading the heavily serialized stories a lot less than I re-read the standalone books for sure. But it used to cost me $1.30/hr for the same entertainment, so it's an increase regardless.

 

[Christopher]

Guess i can't say for sure on that one. I was operating under the assumption that it would just be the same general story length that would have been published as a MMPB previously.

I don't see any reason to assume that. It's not like these novels were commissioned as MMPBs and then switched to TPB. The format would've been decided from the start.

No idea if they had come to the writers, said the format was changing, and to work bigger word counts or not.

Yes, that's basically how it works. The target word count is specified in the initial contract. After all, we have to know what length we're aiming for before we start to write.

 

[Oz Trekkie]

When new books are announced, I can guarantee that there will be nothing by me. I've heard nothing but silence from Simon & Schuster for the past nine years.

 

[The Wormhole]

ut when the Star Wars books went all-HC, that was my point where i stopped buying and started getting them from the library.

At least Star Wars reprints their novels as MMPBs. Trek probably won't be doing that when they make this switch.

 

[Therin of Andor]

At least Star Wars reprints their novels as MMPBs. Trek probably won't be doing that when they make this switch.

Up until recently, most Pocket trades become MMPB reprints.

I remember the fanfare of Pocket's first Trek hardcover for adults, "Spock's World". Originally it wasn't even going to get a MMPB reprint. Getting that hardcover was so exciting. When the subsequent hardcovers did come out, they were always chunkier than the average MMPB, and the recent trades have essentially replaced the hardcovers on the schedule.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Trade paperbacks cost more, but authors have to eat. I assume (hope) they get more royalties from a $15 book than from a $10 book?

 

[Christopher]

Trade paperbacks cost more, but authors have to eat. I assume (hope) they get more royalties from a $15 book than from a $10 book?

At least in Pocket Trek contracts, the percentage is the same for MMPB and trade, so if the price is higher, the royalty is higher.

 

[KRAD]

Royalties are almost always a percentage of cover price, so yeah, authors earn more on trades than mass-market -- and earn more on hardcovers than on trades.....

 

[Stevil2001]

Up until recently, most Pocket trades become MMPB reprints.

Is that true? I think the TPB->MMPB is more of an exception than a rule. Strange New Worlds I and II, The Lives of Dax, two New Frontier novels, the first Romulan War book, and the Star Trek (2009) novelization are all I can think of. Contrast that to Endgame, The Expanse, every other early 2000s anthology, all the Corps of Engineers reprints, the Mirror and Myriad Universe books...

 

[David Weller]

TPBs are becoming the norm.

As I said somewhere previously, most of the new books I buy are TPBs - Star Trek novels have been about the only MMPBs that I bought.

I have to say that I prefer MMPBs because they can be put in a jacket pocket which is a lot more convenient if I’m taking a long train or bus journey. TPBs have to go in my backpack.

 

[Steve Roby]

Not too fussed over TPB vs MMPB. I often buy print and ebook editons for things like Star Trek books, so I can trade off between paperback and ereader depending on where I am. Read a paperback at home during the day, Kobo on the commute and late at night when my wife wants to sleep without my lamp on. For a lot of other stuff these days I just go ebook, but when you’ve got at least 1200 Star Trek print books it’s hard to drop print entirely.

 

[JD]

Up until recently, most Pocket trades become MMPB reprints.

I remember the fanfare of Pocket's first Trek hardcover for adults, "Spock's World". Originally it wasn't even going to get a MMPB reprint. Getting that hardcover was so exciting. When the subsequent hardcovers did come out, they were always chunkier than the average MMPB, and the recent trades have essentially replaced the hardcovers on the schedule.

They hadn't done trades or hardcovers in years before the Disco books, unless I'm mistaken the last one was the Destiny omnibus in 2012, 6 years ago.

 

[Therin of Andor]

6 years ago.

I feel old.

 

[tomswift2002]

They hadn't done trades or hardcovers in years before the Disco books, unless I'm mistaken the last one was the Destiny omnibus in 2012, 6 years ago.

The “Destiny” omnibus was from March 2012 and was trade only.

“Starfleet Academy- The Assassination Game” was the last hardcover and was released in Trade in June 2012.

“Star Trek Into Darkness” was released in May 2013 in Trade.

 

[Daddy Todd]

The Autobiographies of Kirk and Picard were both issued in hardcover (2015, 2017) then as trade paperbacks a year later.

Are those not counted because they’re not from S&S, or because they’re biographies of fictional characters?

 

[Christopher]

^Since they're not from S&S, I don't see how they could count, since that publisher's policies wouldn't dictate what S&S did.

 

[E-DUB]

I'd like to toss in a general "no" vote on those taller but not wider paperbacks. The last thing I needed was another size of book to deal with. That said I'll take the decrease in quantity if it means ah uptick in quality. Back in the "2 a month" days, it seemed sometimes like they were just trying to "meet the quota". And don't count reissues against the regular tally.