You're welcome. I wish you luck on your trek lit. search!
one FRICKING shelf
- Thread starter RobertScorpio
- Start date
You're welcome. I wish you luck on your trek lit. search!
Clearly, you've never worked retail.
Yes, I have, actually. Fresh bread, managing a shop for a year. I know, only too well, about trying to predict ordering of tomorrow's cakes and pies, how many hot cross buns are needed at Easter, and how many loaves of bread can be pre-sliced in advance without excesssive wastage of packaging, how fickle the general public can be, and how long-range planning can be fouled up easily by all manner of external snafus and broken promises.
At my school, I also run annual week-long book fairs of commercial product for 400 children and their parents.
What do you want me to say? All book shops which have failed to pre-order sufficient shelf stock of Star Trek materials, old and new, have failed miserably. That is obvious. Pocket Books' marketing department has seemingly failed miserably. Have shops ordered sufficient copies of Alan Dean Foster's novelization? Will buyers reject a trade paperback, prefering a MMPB? IDW Publishing has seemingly failed to get sufficient copies of "Countdown" into retail book stores. Please don't blame me if some book retailers and wholesalers have missed the ST XI boat.
However, I have noticed much larger, and more visible, Star Trek sections in bookshops around me, here in Sydney, and last week in Melbourne. If anything, ST shelves are again as big, on average, as Star Wars shelves in many locales. US posters have reported noticing similar trends. And the novelization isn't even due in shops until after the movie goes into general release.
Last edited:
Ian, don't be so narcissistic. It's not your fault.
Partly. It really depends on what Pocket offered bookstores. If Pocket's sales department was only working from what they had on the schedule for this year, I can see a bookstore buyer laughing at the sales rep and saying, "No, seriously, what are you offering that has something to do with the movie? You mean you're not?"[/quote]
I think they have, yes. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. When Orci and Kurtzman started talking months ago about the novels that influenced the film, Pocket should have said, "We have to get those books back into print, in nice editions, with movie covers." The lightbulbs should have gone off. Pocket didn't do that, and that's a failure of vision. Seriously. That's Pocket's failure.
Margaret's cancellation of the Crucible hardcover was also short-sighted. Yes, I realize she didn't have enough hours in the day, but that's one of the few books that were on tap that would have caught the lightning from the film.
Bookstores would prefer trades, Ian. Doesn't matter what the consumers want. What matters is what bookstores want.
I don't know about that. I've seen multiple copies in multiple bookstores. Unfortunately, unless you knew to look in the graphic novel rack for it, you wouldn't know it was there.
To be blunt, I've not seen that in any bookstore I've been in within the last week. Admittedly, Borders has cashflow problems and probably couldn't beef up their sections. But Barnes & Noble locally is equally bereft of Star Trek fiction.
Just for shits and grins, Ian... how exactly do you think such things work? Do you truly believe that Pocket and IDW and Barnes & Noble and Borders and Wal-Mart and Ingram all just happened to "fail miserably" simultaneously? That balls were coincidentally dropped and responsibilities shirked at dozens of companies across the US? What's your theory for what the whole rest of the world did to make your predictions wrong?
My local Waldenbooks has about 1 and 1/2 shelf of Trek books 
Well, the big problem is that the older books are out of print. It would probably take a major effort to put enough older books back in print to fill another couple shelves, and it would be an extremely risky proposition.
As for putting movie trek covers on older trek novels: there might be some legal difficulties given that the movies and books are technically being produced by separate corporate entities (even if they're owned by the same guy).
As for putting movie trek covers on older trek novels: there might be some legal difficulties given that the movies and books are technically being produced by separate corporate entities (even if they're owned by the same guy).
I do believe I recall seeing wording in various wholesaler catalogs reminding retailers the new film was coming, and I certainly hope Simon & Schuster's marketing staff were either sending out media releases or visiting bookstores (or head-of-ordering staff of book chains). I also assume that the concept of marketing people "doing the rounds" to push key titles to store ordering managers has diminished? So yeah, I no longer have any idea how it's done.
I worked as an editor for a professional journal for 4.5 years, and anticipating future trends a year ahead, securing advertising for future issues, planning long-range deadlines, was part of my job description. I increased subscriptions by 50% during my time there, and average page count went from 80pp to 92pp because we sold sufficient advertising. I was reading distributor catalogs long before I had that editing job, and in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, met numerous marketing people, some of whom were responsible for pushing ST product in Australia. Some in my capacity as a ST fan club president, and some as part of my job (teacher-librarian and journal editor).
A year ago I predicted that this new film would definitely help the situation whereby bookshops were seemingly refusing to stock as much ST product as they had done during the heyday of TNG (Seasons 3-7 through to "First Contact"). Obviously, the recent lack of ST product in general bookstores reflects dropping ST ratings of DS9, VOY, ENT and fan disappointment in INS and NEM. The fanbase, which had been temporarily swollen by the general public's interest in TNG, had shrunk back considerably, no younger people were being drawn into the ST book-buying demographic, and people who were once avid fans in the 1990s were either no longer buying, found new SF media interests, or had switched to online shopping.
I still believe that many bookshops will continue to respond to growing fan interest in the new film. People are reporting that some shops have already prepared for May 8. If many shops - and Simon & Schuster's own marketing people - decided against actively supporting the film, or that they anticipated that ST audiences are simply too fickle, or won't be seeking ST product in great numbers, then so be it.
I was wrong, and somebody at Simon & Schuster has probably been shortsighted. To continue to hold the exclusive ST license and not do enough to promote ST books seems... very strange to me. Or, the film will be the flop that some store managers and marketing people assumed it would be twelve months ago.
Pardon me. I'm just too busy staring at my own reflection.
Exactly. I have no problem with novelizations in trade size, especially since the last few were hardcovers, and seemingly sold well enough. If the book sells gangbusters, there'll be probably be a MMPB in time for the DVD.
I'm mainly responding to some listserv friends there. Many were claiming there was "nothing in graphic novel style to support the new movie". But I've seen posters for "Countdown" in many places, and it's certainly been mentioned in ST magazines and online bbs pages. (It amazes me that some supposedly-avid ST fans I know have been fans for almost 40 years and still can't work out how to secure ST product. But then, some are penniless and will only borrow from libraries, so they're destined for continued disappointment.)
Some general bookshops stock their graphic novels in a graphic novel section, sure, but most shops I frequent put ST graphic novels with other trade-sized ST product.
Ok. And a year ago people were predicting that stores would ignore the movie. I tried to stay positive, but obviously I was wrong. And narcissistic, too.
Ah well, Star Trek publishing remains our grubby little secret and the rest of the world shall remain in ignorance.
All I've noticed is Canadian posters noticing that the Canadian chain, Chapters, has increased the presence of Trek books in their stores. Haven't noticed any Americans reporting the same thing at US chains.
My apologies. You guys all look alike to us Andorians.
And then, not even all the Chapters. The two nearest my place are pimping Wolverine, but there's no change in their Trek offerings/visibility.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Let's not forget that comic book stores should also do a little advertising, making the general public aware that Star Trek comics existed, in vast numbers, WELL in advance of the new movie...just in time for Free Comic Book Day, Saturday, May 2. And putting up displays showing the recent IDW comics including, yes, "Countdown", wouldn't hurt.
Really? Never thought to look there... not sure the Wal-Marts here have many books at all...
As always, individual bookshop managers often wield a lot of power. In a store where the staff has a passion for science fiction and/or Star Trek, or where even just one assistant has that enthusiasm, the stock will often reflect those passions. (And even that can work both ways: in some stores where the staff has a passion for science fiction they may be biased against SF media tie-ins, and the stock can reflect those biases.)
In other chains, staff passions may be overruled by those doing the ordering. In some stores, no one in that store does ordering, and stock just arrives. Some chain stores are franchises, others are depots.
One would like to think that a bookshop stocks what people ask for but, as we've often heard here, a great many people wander into bookstores, can't see what they want on the shelves, and then wander out again, never telling the store why they missed out on a sale. Or, they do tell, and the staff don't keep a tally of inquiries.
One would hope that some book shop staffs will be more attuned to Star Trek over the next few months once they see the film for themselves. These days there is a good selling window for any film between its theatrical release and the launch of its DVD, so again, I still see opportunities for shops to reflect tastes/inquiries/growing interest in Star Trek.
So much of this stuff is cyclic. I'm still amazed so many people here are convinced the cycle will never turn in Star Trek literature's favour again.
In other chains, staff passions may be overruled by those doing the ordering. In some stores, no one in that store does ordering, and stock just arrives. Some chain stores are franchises, others are depots.
One would like to think that a bookshop stocks what people ask for but, as we've often heard here, a great many people wander into bookstores, can't see what they want on the shelves, and then wander out again, never telling the store why they missed out on a sale. Or, they do tell, and the staff don't keep a tally of inquiries.
One would hope that some book shop staffs will be more attuned to Star Trek over the next few months once they see the film for themselves. These days there is a good selling window for any film between its theatrical release and the launch of its DVD, so again, I still see opportunities for shops to reflect tastes/inquiries/growing interest in Star Trek.
So much of this stuff is cyclic. I'm still amazed so many people here are convinced the cycle will never turn in Star Trek literature's favour again.
Ian, I would like nothing more than to see the Star Trek film help the cause of Star Trek literature.
The problem is, I don't see that Pocket has done anything to take advantage of that. I want to be wrong. I've said that all along. But the view that I have is that Pocket -- either in Editorial or in Marketing or in Sales or any combination thereof -- has found a way to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
I want to to be wrong. At the same time, I don't understand your boundless optimism. I don't find cause for it.
Story of my life.
I went to Books-A-Million last week, but they still have the usual 2 (bottom) shelves of Star Trek, and a whole case of Star Wars. They did have the most recent comic TPBs, but I had to look pretty hard for them. As far as ST novels, they just had random ones from the last 2-3 years; and if they're duologies or trilogies they don't have book 1. However, my local Wal-Mart does have more Trek stuff than usual (still not much though). They have a bunch of Pez dispensers up front, quite a few action figures at the front of the isle, and the only DVD they had was the Alternate Realities collection, but still no books.
Similar threads
