I am a huge fan of the technical and reference books. While I do not hold out much hope for an "official" Enterprise Technical Manual from Pocket Books, I suspect that an Enterprise Compendium or Companion book would be far cheaper to produce and give us fans of the ST reference materials something to which we can look forward. Has anyone heard anything out the mouths of Pocket of this being a likely possibility?
Enterprise Compendium or Companion Book
- Thread starter Bender23
- Start date
Here's a freebie, but please read the FAQ. It's where I cut and pasted the response from.
Q. Where are my nonfiction books?
A. Nonfiction sales have been abysmally down for Pocket's Star Trek books recently; their last big effort, Star Charts, apparently sold very poorly despite being the coolest book ever. There have been a few books recently-- Fall/Winter 2006 saw the release of two projects, Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion (a guide to the prose fiction) and Ships of the Line (a collection of pretty starship pictures). A couple guides are slated for 2008 as well: Captain Kirk's Guide to Women and Star Trek 101.
There has been no word on any new editions of the Encyclopedia or Chronology or an Enterprise Companion. I don't care if you and all your friends would buy them, the books won't sell well enough. (Do you seriously think Pocket would not publish them if they could make good money?)
Q. Where are my nonfiction books?
A. Nonfiction sales have been abysmally down for Pocket's Star Trek books recently; their last big effort, Star Charts, apparently sold very poorly despite being the coolest book ever. There have been a few books recently-- Fall/Winter 2006 saw the release of two projects, Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion (a guide to the prose fiction) and Ships of the Line (a collection of pretty starship pictures). A couple guides are slated for 2008 as well: Captain Kirk's Guide to Women and Star Trek 101.
There has been no word on any new editions of the Encyclopedia or Chronology or an Enterprise Companion. I don't care if you and all your friends would buy them, the books won't sell well enough. (Do you seriously think Pocket would not publish them if they could make good money?)
It'd be nice to see an unofficial one along the lines of Captain's Logs or Delta Quadrant, but there's at least three factors against that - the ready and free availability of such materials on the Internet, the aforementioned failure of nonfiction Trek books and Enterprise's lack of commercial success (much as I liked it).
Thanks for the info. I did a search but obviously not thorough enough.
Interesting stuff. Not totally unexpected but I was hoping I would be wrong and someone would have some good news on this front.
I agree that some of the online stuff is very good (i.e. www.waxingmoon.com and www.trekcore.com do a great job) but it would be great to see it condensed down to pdf printable material.
Interesting stuff. Not totally unexpected but I was hoping I would be wrong and someone would have some good news on this front.
I agree that some of the online stuff is very good (i.e. www.waxingmoon.com and www.trekcore.com do a great job) but it would be great to see it condensed down to pdf printable material.
I gather that Star Trek 101 is meant to be an episode guide to all the series, thus compensating somewhat for the absence of an ENT companion book. Although it certainly won't go into as much depth as the individual companions.
You've got to wonder who exactly does market research for Pocket.
CK'S guide to women?? who the F would want or buy such exerable,cash-in muck?Really.Pictures of actresses from a 40 year old tv show(no problem with the actresses)with some ,no doubt pithy "advice" from the good captain.
Along with other blatant cash-in garbage(recipie books and the like)small wonder that non-fic ST books are in the same straits that the tv franchise itself is.
CK'S guide to women?? who the F would want or buy such exerable,cash-in muck?Really.Pictures of actresses from a 40 year old tv show(no problem with the actresses)with some ,no doubt pithy "advice" from the good captain.
Along with other blatant cash-in garbage(recipie books and the like)small wonder that non-fic ST books are in the same straits that the tv franchise itself is.
^ Bearing in mind that my observations are those of an outsider, it makes sense to conclude that the target market for a tech manual isn't remotely the same as that for a cute, lighter weight offering. The people who might buy Kirk's Guide and other such books are probably the same people who buy Trek gag cards from Hallmark, or the plushy Gorn dolls, or the T-shirts that read "Klingons do it with Honor!"
All of that stuff sells, and it sells by the truckload, and a good chunk of it is likely purchased by casual fans who don't get wrapped up in all of this like most of us do, or friends or relatives of fans who think it's funny or cute and it makes an unusual gift. At one point (don't know if this is still true), the most popular book being sold at Star Trek: The Experience wasn't a novel, or a companion, or a script book. It was The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, the little dinky book that sat next to the cash register. People passing through the shops and looking for quick gifts for Trek fans back home were apparently lapping that thing up like chocolate flavored Viagra.
In other words, Kirk's Guide/etc = apples; Companion/Tech Manual = oranges.
From where I sit, anyway.
All of that stuff sells, and it sells by the truckload, and a good chunk of it is likely purchased by casual fans who don't get wrapped up in all of this like most of us do, or friends or relatives of fans who think it's funny or cute and it makes an unusual gift. At one point (don't know if this is still true), the most popular book being sold at Star Trek: The Experience wasn't a novel, or a companion, or a script book. It was The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, the little dinky book that sat next to the cash register. People passing through the shops and looking for quick gifts for Trek fans back home were apparently lapping that thing up like chocolate flavored Viagra.
In other words, Kirk's Guide/etc = apples; Companion/Tech Manual = oranges.
From where I sit, anyway.
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I'd have used Big Mac vs. Filet Mignon, but otherwise... yeah, what he said.
And I do believe that Kirk's Guide is much faster to write/produce than a manual or another encyclopedia. There are ... what ... six/seven years to catch up? That's a lot of manpower and time to invest.
My hopes are that with a finanically successful new movie, an updated Encyclopedia will appear.
Taste in ST books varies over time. When I became a ST fan in December 1979, I devoured things like the TMP novelization, the official movie calendar and started to find the Bantam novels and second hand Blish and Foster adaptations. When I saw the Photonovels, "ST Starfleet Technical Manual" and "ST Concordance", I couldn't imagine who would buy them.
A few months later, I suddenly found I needed them, and had trouble fining them again. Then I had a memory of once seeing a browsing copy of the (usually sealed) "ST Starfleet Medical Reference Manual". Again I scoffed, "Who'd want that!". A few months later I yearned to own it, and the hunt was on again. (I finally had to special order one from the publisher's distributor - they thought I was a book wholesaler and sent me a pre-invoice for ten copies!)
There are so many different types of fans, not all are completists, and not all stay focused on the same aspects throughout their time as a fan. A tech person may become interested in the novels at some point. A relationships fan may suddenly crave "making of' books. Not to mention their relatives, desperately trying to buy something "for the fan who has everything".
They are fun!
So you reckon people would buy thick manuals and episode guides if only there were no pesky recipe books or quiz books to distract them? Nope.
I can attest to this phenomenon on a personal level.
One of my best friends went to The Experience on a trip to Vegas, and (after concluding that a case of Romulan Ale would be too cumbersome) she bought me exactly one book from there...
