Author's Notes as Promo Material?

[marlboro]

I was rereading some S.C.E. books yesterday, and I noticed a couple of references to other Trek stories. Nothing uncommon about that, of course. They're nice little continuity Easter eggs for TrekLit fans. But why not use those references for more than that?

Some authors offer extensive notes laying out all of the references in their books, and I think it would be awesome to see them appended to the e-books. Not only are the fun and informative, they provide an easy way to promote other Trek books.

THE END

POSTER'S NOTATIONS:

Paragraph 1: The two S.C.E. stories I read were Ishtar Rising and Foundations #3. They referenced Twilight's End by Jerry Oltion and In the Name of Honor by Dayton Ward respectively.

Paragraph 2: "Some authors" includes

David Mack http://davidmack.pro

Christopher L. Bennett https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com

 

[David Mack]

I haven't done annotations in years, mostly because I've gotten too busy to keep producing them. For something such as what you suggest to work, all of the Star Trek authors would need to produce annotations on a consistent basis for all of their Trek works. It's more work than it might seem.

 

[JJMiller]

I do chapter-by-chapter annotations on my website on most of my books; for example, the ones for my TNG Takedown novel are at http://www.farawaypress.com/fiction/books/startrektakedown.html

They are, however, very time-intensive, and writing them is time away from writing books. That’s why I’m about two years behind — I’ll get the PREY notes up if I ever get a slow month.

I wouldn’t expect to see authors including them in an official book unless the publisher paid for that extra work. It has happened before: my Mass Effect graphic novel notes went into the deluxe edition as annotations on each page, and Del Rey did an annotated Heir to the Empire edition with Tim Zahn’s notes. But I expect that extra work was compensated.

(There is the further matter that not all our comments might pass licensing muster — I generally bring up a lot of different franchises in my notes, as it’s my own forum. Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem; at any rate, it’s never come up.)

 

[marlboro]

Hmm...it's shame that they are so time consuming to write up; they do make for interesting reading. I've always enjoyed the "behind-the-scenes" portions of books. Forewords, afterwords, and note sections are as close as you can get to seeing the work being done. It's oddly...satisfying... in much the same way as watching a mechanic work, or an artist paint is. It's the pleasure of learning.

Still, at the very least, I wish there was some way to point the reader to the specific books that get referenced. I don't know if it would help with sales of older books to be worth the hassle though.

As a kid, I really enjoyed digging through boxes of old comics looking for a specific issue after seeing it referenced by one of those little yellow boxes with the "*See issue 147 true-believer! " messages. Maybe I'm just letting nostalgia make me think this is a better idea than it is.


P.S.

"And there was another fun moment, later in 2015: at Shore Leave in Baltimore I met Daniel Davis, the actor who portrayed Moriarty. I wasn't ultimately able to write a Moriarty novel, but I gave him a copy of the book and thanked him for the inspiration. He couldn’t have been more charming."


It's always good to find out that someone you think would be nice if you ever met them in person (without any logical reason to do so) turns out to be nice.

 

[JJMiller]

Yes, he was wonderful -- I don't have a lot of cast photos among the pictures on my office wall, but he's one.

And, yes, I'd certainly be interested in footnoted editions, if they can find a way to make them work for everyone. It definitely takes a few days' work to go back chapter-by-chapter and remember all the sources — in some cases you have to research it all over again because you didn't bookmark whatever-it-was. It's much easier to do when the book's still fresh on your mind; sadly, my intentions to keep notes as I go usually fall prey to the deadline crunch.