2026 Novel Releases

[Avro Arrow]

Paramount Skydance Launches New Book Publishing Imprint Two Years After Simon & Schuster Sale

Two years after the sale of Simon & Schusater, Paramount is getting back into the book biz with the launch of new publishing imprint, Paramount Global Publishing.

variety.com

Well, that was certainly worth having S&S bought by a private equity firm, then.

So they say this:

Paramount says this move back into publishing under its new Skydance leadership marks “a strategic expansion in how fans engage with the company’s revered content while also creating new opportunities to develop original IP.”

But also this:

Paramount says it will continue its existing licensing strategy with publishers and distributors.

So is there going to be an effort to pull the Star Trek license back in-house, or not, I wonder?

 

[bdub76]

So is there going to be an effort to pull the Star Trek license back in-house, or not, I wonder?

I'd want to make sure I have all of my DRM free Star Trek novels downloaded. The good news is that a lot of them are DRM free. The last thing I want is my Star Trek eBooks disappearing on me when the S&S's license expires for Star Trek.

 

[ryan123450]

So does anyone know when the current Simon & Schuster contract expires?

Assuming Star Trek ends up at this new publisher within the next few years, hopefully they have a desire to put out more than three or four novels a year. That has been my main disappointment with Simon & Schuster for the last decade.

 

[Ronald Held]

Could the current Trek writers move to the new Paramount imprint, after the S&S contracts expires?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Since there are no more Kelvinverse Kirk and crew movies, will we get novels?

 

[The Wormhole]

So does anyone know when the current Simon & Schuster contract expires?

IIRC, assuming the contract is typically five years, and knowing the dates it was renewed throughout the 2010s, than the current one should expire around 2027 or 2028.

 

[Steve Roby]

Could the current Trek writers move to the new Paramount imprint, after the S&S contracts expires?

They aren't S&S employees, so they wouldn't be disqualified or anything. But it would depend on the new publisher's editorial staff and the company's plans.

 

[JD]

I'd want to make sure I have all of my DRM free Star Trek novels downloaded. The good news is that a lot of them are DRM free. The last thing I want is my Star Trek eBooks disappearing on me when the S&S's license expires for Star Trek.

Are we sure that would happen? Because I have a crap load of unread Trek e-books and I don't really have room on my tablet to download them all onto it.

 

[bdub76]

Are we sure that would happen? Because I have a crap load of unread Trek e-books and I don't really have room on my tablet to download them all onto it.

When the license expires, there is no telling what might happen. eBook purchases are really indefinite leases. You're better off if you actually download it and store it locally.

The good news is that most of my Star Trek novels are DRM free. However, there are some that aren't. I'd prioritize those in case they disappear.

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[Avro Arrow]

So I have to say, I'm kind of nervous at the thought of the entire Star Trek literary output for the last forty-seven years just disappearing from the digital landscape in a puff of corporate legality. I'm not even just talking about myself or the ebooks I have personally purchased; I mean all the books not being digitally accessible for anyone forevermore.

Perhaps this is an overly naïve question, but... is there any chance at all that if S&S loses the license, that the rights for the books revert back to the licensor, so that whatever the new book arm of Paramount ends up being, can keep the ebook versions available?

I'd much rather have S&S keep the license, even if it means keeping the same sparse release schedule we have now, if it means not losing digital access to all that history. Of course, I also know that what I'd prefer matters not one whit to the corporations making these decisions.

 

[bdub76]

So I have to say, I'm kind of nervous at the thought of the entire Star Trek literary output for the last forty-seven years just disappearing from the digital landscape in a puff of corporate legality. I'm not even just talking about myself or the ebooks I have personally purchased; I mean all the books not being digitally accessible for anyone forevermore.

Perhaps this is an overly naïve question, but... is there any chance at all that if S&S loses the license, that the rights for the books revert back to the licensor, so that whatever the new book arm of Paramount ends up being, can keep the ebook versions available?

I'd much rather have S&S keep the license, even if it means keeping the same sparse release schedule we have now, if it means not losing digital access to all that history. Of course, I also know that what I'd prefer matters not one whit to the corporations making these decisions.

This feels to me like Virgin losing the rights to Doctor Who. The books were never made into eBooks, so they're all out of print. This would be worse case scenario. So, I think, it's prudent to download your books while you can, rather than wait and find out.

Virgin New Adventures - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[drewcardi]

Wouldn't S&S retain the rights to the books they published? Bantam republished their Trek books long after they lost the license.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Wouldn't S&S retain the rights to the books they published? Bantam republished their Trek books long after they lost the license.

That was a quirk in Bantam's license that caught Pocket Books and Paramount quite unawares in 1980, and caused a lengthy delay of the first few Pocket original novels getting released. I imagine that loophole was patched before the next big contract renewal.

 

[Christopher]

The Marvel Comics novels that I and others wrote for Pocket had their rights revert to Marvel when Pocket's license expired, and many of them have since been rereleased by different publishers. Ditto for GraphicAudio's adaptation of my Spider-Man novel.

 

[Smiley]

My "glass half full" hope is that if rights to older books go to a new publisher, they will use higher-res images for their covers. VOY #13: The Black Shore was a particularly hideous example, even on my phone.

 

[Greg Cox]

I can't speak for STAR TREK specifically, since I have no inside knowledge there, but media tie-in books are owned by the IP owner, not the publisher. And, typically, the licenses to publish them have expiration dates.

Following up on what Christopher said, all of the Marvel Comics novels I wrote for Berkeley Books back in the day have since been reissued by different publishers. And, as I mentioned in another thread recently, I still remember negotiating with Conan Properties to extend our license to keep publishing some early Conan novels by Robert Jordan, back when I was working full-time for Tor Books.

(Alas, our license to use Shwarzenegger's image on the cover of CONAN THE DESTROYER did expire eventually, so I had to replace it with a generic "Conan" painting by Ken Kelly on all subsequent editions.)

 

[Steve Roby]

Edit: Greg got in ahead of me with some actual experience and knowledge from the publishing and writing side of things, but here’s a fan’s thoughts….

So I have to say, I'm kind of nervous at the thought of the entire Star Trek literary output for the last forty-seven years just disappearing from the digital landscape in a puff of corporate legality. I'm not even just talking about myself or the ebooks I have personally purchased; I mean all the books not being digitally accessible for anyone forevermore.

I don’t know if it’s lack of interest or difficulties tracking down who owns the rights now, but there are an awful lot of tie-ins that only legally exist as old used paperbacks. The Man From UNCLE had a couple dozen novels, The Avengers (UK TV series) had several, Get Smart, Dirty Harry, Bewitched… some things do get lost. Nothing quite like Star Trek, though, with several hundred novels. The Doctor Who situation is more complicated, but there aren’t quite as many books involved.

Perhaps this is an overly naïve question, but... is there any chance at all that if S&S loses the license, that the rights for the books revert back to the licensor, so that whatever the new book arm of Paramount ends up being, can keep the ebook versions available?

I'd much rather have S&S keep the license, even if it means keeping the same sparse release schedule we have now, if it means not losing digital access to all that history. Of course, I also know that what I'd prefer matters not one whit to the corporations making these decisions.

IDW reprints a lot of past publishers’ Star Trek comics, and Titan reprints past publishers’ Alien novels. So it should be possible to keep the old books available. But… the current editions would go away. The new publisher would want to update branding and other information. With the huge number of novels involved, that might be a bigger project than a new company could take on right away, assuming they even wanted to. I can’t imagine something like, say, Laurence Yep’s 1985 novel Shadow Lord is selling thousands of copies a year, so would they be in a rush to get that back on the Kindle and Kobo stores?

 

[Greg Cox]

I see that somebody is reprinting the original Dark Shadows tie-in novels by "Marilyn Ross," as oversized trade paperbacks instead of mass-market paperbacks. Don't know if there are ebook editions, since, of course, the original editions were published back in 1970s, long before ebooks were a thing.

And Titan is now reprinting some vintage CONAN comics that were originally published by Marvel back in the day. And in some cases, they are published newly-colored versions of comics that were originally published only in black-and-white.

 

[Therin of Andor]

IDW reprints a lot of past publishers’ Star Trek comics, and Titan reprints past publishers’ Alien novels. So it should be possible to keep the old books available...

The controversy with the IDW and Eaglemoss reprints of other publishers, IIRC, was that there were no further royalties for the creators, nor even contributors' copies?

 

[Steve Roby]

I seem to recall reading that that's pretty common in the comics business, but there are others here who could speak more authoritatively on the subject. I guess what's legal and what's ethical don't always overlap perfectly.