A serious question...

[Emissary of the Prophets]

I have been out of the loop for a while. I was an avid Trek novel reader all through the 90s and early 2000s. I kind of lost interest around about the time they started to pull everything to together. I dropped after reading the Typhon Pact. It was franchise fatigue, I suppose. I had read quite a lot of the novels. That's not a criticism of the writers, just how I felt at the time.
I am aware that CBS/Pocket wanted to tie everything up in a bow after Picard was released setting up a new future on the Trek universe. It was better than just dumping every things like Disney did with the Star War Expanded Universe.
Now, I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe I was being a bit naive in thinking we'd have as many novels released as we did in the 90s. Its seems that the focus has been mainly on Discovery, Picard and Strange New Worlds. I get it. They are the most recent series, it makes sense. The question is, why aren't we getting more novels from the older shows? Is the interest not there any more? Have sales fallen off so badly that CBS doesn't think it's worth it?
I am not looking to cause an argument or have a load of abuse thrown at me. I am genuinely interested to know the real reasons and get fandoms view on things.

Thanks.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

We're not getting as many novels from "Berman Era" shows because we aren't getting as many novels, period, and we now have five new streaming series (one of which, to date, has only generated youth novels, and the other of which, to date, has only generated comics).

We're not getting any VOY or ENT novels at all because those two series never did generate as many novels as TNG, DS9, or TOS, and because (in all likelihood) those two series are perceived as "butt-monkeys" among those who actually buy the novels.

Personally, I liked VOY (especially when DS9 got mired in the Dominion War arc, and started delving too deeply into Bajoran mysticism), and I liked ENT (except for the whole season that got mired in the Xindi War arc). If I want to watch a science fiction series with a continuing arc dictating most of the episodes, I watch B5: it did that a lot better than ST ever has, and I think there were a few episodes I missed, mostly from its first season.

 

[Emissary of the Prophets]

We're not getting as many novels from "Berman Era" shows because we aren't getting as many novels, period, and we now have five new streaming series (one of which, to date, has only generated youth novels, and the other of which, to date, has only generated comics).

We're not getting any VOY or ENT novels at all because those two series never did generate as many novels as TNG, DS9, or TOS, and because (in all likelihood) those two series are perceived as "butt-monkeys" among those who actually buy the novels.

Personally, I liked VOY (especially when DS9 got mired in the Dominion War arc, and started delving too deeply into Bajoran mysticism), and I liked ENT (except for the whole season that got mired in the Xindi War arc). If I want to watch a science fiction series with a continuing arc dictating most of the episodes, I watch B5: it did that a lot better than ST ever has, and I think there were a few episodes I missed, mostly from its first season.

The Xindi Arc was too much filler and not enough killer. I liked the idea, but it was poorly executed. Too much wandering around instead of getting on with the mission.

 

[Greg Cox]

TOS novels seem to be evergreen…thank goodness!

 

[JD]

There simply isn't enough interest to support more than a handful of books a year, and a franchise like this is always going to put a focus on whatever the current shows are.
The reason we're getting so many TOS novels is just because they sell well, and they haven't totally abandoned the other shows, in the last few years we've gotten 2 TNG novel, 1 DS9 novel, and there's another DS9 novel coming out next year.

 

[David cgc]

There simply isn't enough interest to support more than a handful of books a year, and a franchise like this is always going to put a focus on whatever the current shows are.

I'm not sure I'd say "simply." There wasn't any indication of a performance trigger for stopping the monthly cadence the way there was for the bimonthly one way back when. A contract renewal coincided with a corporate merger and a change in main production status quo, any one of which alone could've altered the publishing strategy.

I'm sure there are business reasons for why the novels haven't returned to a consistent pace, never mind why they haven't been coming out in the same quantity. Whether those are good business reasons in a matter of judgement and hindsight (remember that SCE ended after they decided that eBooks weren't ever going to catch on a month or two before the first Kindle came out; you can be sensible and also wrong), but it's not like there were no confounding factors so we can just assume people stopped buying twelve books a year because they didn't want to anymore and the publisher reacted to that.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There simply isn't enough interest to support more than a handful of books a year, and a franchise like this is always going to put a focus on whatever the current shows are.
The reason we're getting so many TOS novels is just because they sell well, and they haven't totally abandoned the other shows, in the last few years we've gotten 2 TNG novel, 1 DS9 novel, and there's another DS9 novel coming out next year.

Yeah, I suspect it's nothing to do with online perception of the shows, but how well the various lines have sold that determines what gets made. Clearly the novels haven't sold anywhere near as well as before, or we'd still be getting them monthly or twice monthly.

No idea if it's something across all TV tie-ins or if it's just the Trek line that's tanked.

 

[JD]

I'm not sure I'd say "simply." There wasn't any indication of a performance trigger for stopping the monthly cadence the way there was for the bimonthly one way back when. A contract renewal coincided with a corporate merger and a change in main production status quo, any one of which alone could've altered the publishing strategy.

I'm sure there are business reasons for why the novels haven't returned to a consistent pace, never mind why they haven't been coming out in the same quantity. Whether those are good business reasons in a matter of judgement and hindsight (remember that SCE ended after they decided that eBooks weren't ever going to catch on a month or two before the first Kindle came out; you can be sensible and also wrong), but it's not like there were no confounding factors so we can just assume people stopped buying twelve books a year because they didn't want to anymore and the publisher reacted to that.

I'd honestly be shocked if it was any other reason, the franchise is nowhere near as popular as it used to be, and I would be shocked if the sales would be high enough to support 12 books a year.
Even as popular as it is, Star Wars only has 2 new novels coming out between January and October of next year. Now there are a bunch of reprints, kids books, art books and reference books, but Trek is also doing all of those except reprints.

 

[The Wormhole]

Simple economics. Since they switched to doing the novels as trade paperbacks, it's meant fewer releases a year. Granted this has been scaled back dramatically from when they first switched, but as suggested above this is likely a reflection of sales. With so few novels being released, the priority is going to be the current shows, as they're more visible as well as TOS, as those are the bestselling novels. And in recent years, we have even gotten a few new TNG and even DS9 novels (with a new DS9 coming next year) to the older shows aren't being completely ignored.

 

[Christopher]

Simple economics. Since they switched to doing the novels as trade paperbacks, it's meant fewer releases a year.

Technically, there used to be both monthly mass-market paperbacks and maybe 2 or 3 trade paperbacks a year. So it wasn't so much switching as discontinuing the MMPB line and keeping the TPB line.

 

[FredH]

I'd honestly be shocked if it was any other reason, the franchise is nowhere near as popular as it used to be, and I would be shocked if the sales would be high enough to support 12 books a year.

Yeah. It stands to reason that there were more readers buying TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY within the first few years after the latter three series ended, than there are something like thirty years later.

 

[Markonian]

It would be cool if someday we'd get an anthology book were every show is represented it.