I can't believe Trek Audio Books won't sell

[Dave Scarpa]

Given the rise of Audible and Audiobooks in General, I can't believe that if even Trek Audiobooks were poor sellers back in the day, that they would not be poor sellers today.

Now the Audio books in the past my have been very expensive to produce with celebrity talent and sound effects and music, but they don't even need to go that far, get a good professional ready and sell them unabridged and I and others will buy them.

 

[Turtletrekker]

See, now I liked the music and sound effects and celebrity talent. I stopped buying audio-books when they stopped using actual Trek actors. To this day, I still enjoy listening to Q-in-Law performed by Barrett and DeLancie or Imzadi read by Frakes.

I understand the cost factor involved, but the whole experience lost something for me after they stopped using actual Star Trek actors.

 

[tomswift2002]

I would also suspect that for the older audiobooks, a factor holding any unreleased audio books from being on iTunes or which ever service, would be digital rights, as the older ones would've been cleared for distribution on physical media (I.e. Audio Cassette, CD), but the books would not have been cleared for distribution over the internet (especially books from the 1980's and early 90's). And, perhaps, the actor(s) or something else is demanding a high price that S&S just can not over come.

 

[DS9forever]

Armin Shimerman is an amazing narrator.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I understand the cost factor involved, but the whole experience lost something for me after they stopped using actual Star Trek actors.

Same here. My main reason for buying them was for a new performance by ST actors, often "in character", with music and sound effects, that I'd never experienced before. I didn't yearn for "unabridged" at all; if I wanted the whole story, I'd rather read it myself (and I did).

In fact, although I have every other ST audio, I never actually bothered to track down the three unabridged "Vulcan's Soul" books, as read by Richard Poe, put out by Recorded Books, 2004, 510 min; 2006, 630 min; 2007, 694 min, and I've never found the time to play my CDs of Zachary Quinto reading the 2009 movie's unabridged audio of the Alan Dean Foster novelization.

I can't believe that if even Trek Audiobooks were poor sellers back in the day

They weren't, but sales must have started to flag about the same time as they reduced output to mainly only the hardcovers, and then dropped the ST actors in favour of narrators from the regular S&S Audio stable. The gamble was to move to unabridged, or just make fewer abridged per annum. I don't think Recorded Books set any worlds afire with sales, though, and those three were available on CD and as downloads.

 

[ToddCam]

What do people think about actual full cast audio dramas like Doctor Who has done with Big Finish?

 

[ATimson]

What do people think about actual full cast audio dramas like Doctor Who has done with Big Finish?

I think that works for Doctor Who because they only have 2-3 main cast members from the show, then guest stars on top. With Trek, you have a main cast of 7 or more; that means either cherry-picking, or blowing your budget.

Big Finish tried cherry-picking with their Stargate audios; the Companion Chronicles-styled ones worked well enough, but the full cast ones just felt flat to me, with over half the team missing.

 

[JD]

^I could see it working if they did it as a new series, like Excelsior or Titan, where you can have one or two main Trek cast members surrounded by a cast of mostly new characters.

 

[ATimson]

^I could see it working if they did it as a new series, like Excelsior or Titan, where you can have one or two main Trek cast members surrounded by a cast of mostly new characters.

I'd certainly be willing to give either of those a shot.

 

[Therin of Andor]

^I could see it working if they did it as a new series, like Excelsior or Titan, where you can have one or two main Trek cast members surrounded by a cast of mostly new characters.

There were three "Captain Sulu" original-to-audio adventures that featured a guest cast of voices and they failed to set sales records, AFAIK. Had an innovative-for-the-day "3D sound", too.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I liked the Captain Sulu ones but they were not full dramatizations. Its been awhile since I listened to them but you heard each character describing events. In Sulu's case his Captain's Log. Moving back and forth between these, I guess, monologues for each of the small casts. But there was no actual scenes of the characters interacting. I am sure this limited the success of these.

Cacophony was my favorite. I still listen to it every few years. An alien planet which has been receiving old Human radio signals. A group there rebroadcasts them to its population which perceives it as the voice of the gods. It was a clever idea to have audio recordings be the basis for the plot, which totally uses the medium. It used actual old radio news broadcasts.

 

[ToddCam]

Ah, well. Since Doctor Who is killing my wallet with audio adventures, I guess it's a good thing Trek isn't doing something like that. But I would really have a hard time turning a new one down, especially if it's set in the continuity of the novels.

 

[Relayer1]

What do people think about actual full cast audio dramas like Doctor Who has done with Big Finish?

These would appeal to me. So would audiobook only releases, especially read by cast members.

Audiobooks of novels ? Not for me, I'll read it myself thanks !

 

[R. Star]

I guess I just never "got" the whole audio book thing. I bought a few back when I was commuting an hour each way to work and that was convenient, but beyond that... I can read far more quickly that a narrator can talk in any other setting.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I always enjoy audio books on long road trips.

 

[JD]

I just remembered that James Swallow has worked on audio dramas for Big Finish, so we'd even have the perfect writer available if they ever were to do Trek.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I like Audiobooks for gym/treadmill listening. I'm currently listening to the abridged adaptations of Vornholt's Genesis Wave tetralogy. About halfway through Genesis Wave Book II, and, so far, pretty underwhelmed. Abridged just doesn't do it for me any more.