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Pocket's 2010 Schedule Announced on TrekMovie.com

Margret Clark should be fired. She is destroying Trek single handily.

If Marco was still around, we wouldn't have such an unbalanced and messed up schedule.

BRING BACK MARCO. BRING BACK MARCO

If you want to blame someone (bearing in mind that Margaret has been in charge of several of the lines all along) blame the bean-counters who fired Marco as part of a cost-saving exercise, and thus landed her with more than double the workload.

I suspect you'd find that if she'd been fired in December, and Marco was still there with a double workload, much the same effect would have resulted.

Yeah okay I get that but why Marco out of all the Trek editors there? And what happened to Ed Schlesinger and Jennifer Heddle? Don't they edit Trek to in some form because if that's the case, why isn't the workload split among those 3?
 
Yeah okay I get that but why Marco out of all the Trek editors there?

AIUI because he earned the wrong amount - as far as I can tell from the posts on here and the columns about the publishing trade at the time, the company decided to get rid of everyone who earned more than x and, so as not to fire themselves, less than y.
 
Yeah okay I get that but why Marco out of all the Trek editors there?

AIUI because he earned the wrong amount - as far as I can tell from the posts on here and the columns about the publishing trade at the time, the company decided to get rid of everyone who earned more than x and, so as not to fire themselves, less than y.

Indeed. My impression- and I admit I understand economics about as much as a chimpanzee understands quantum physics- is that Marco essentially worked too hard, did too much and was too good at it. He was therefore too expensive to keep. It seems odd and a little outrageous to me, but that's the way it works in the current economic climate I guess (there's my poo fling for the day :)).
 
Yeah okay I get that but why Marco out of all the Trek editors there?

AIUI because he earned the wrong amount - as far as I can tell from the posts on here and the columns about the publishing trade at the time, the company decided to get rid of everyone who earned more than x and, so as not to fire themselves, less than y.

Indeed. My impression- and I admit I understand economics about as much as a chimpanzee understands quantum physics- is that Marco essentially worked too hard, did too much and was too good at it. He was therefore too expensive to keep. It seems odd and a little outrageous to me, but that's the way it works in the current economic climate I guess (there's my poo fling for the day :)).

Problem: Marco made a high salary.
Solution: Fire him.
Better Solution: Keep him on by decreasing his paycheck.
 
Already my book selection was small but it appears to be even smaller next year. With Star Wars out of the picture until the current series is in paperback (from what I've read it's not the best series either so far) and with the lack of novels of my interest in Star Trek, I'll have to move on to other genres. I've never liked how the books were scattered but I understood why and it was nice that there was continuity between them so I accepted it. DS9 is my favorite series of Trek and it's a shame it's jumping forward in order to 'catch up'. If the JJ books sell well, good for them. I probably won't pick them up since I'm not a big TOS fan but it would be good for Star Trek books if they were well received.
 
AIUI because he earned the wrong amount - as far as I can tell from the posts on here and the columns about the publishing trade at the time, the company decided to get rid of everyone who earned more than x and, so as not to fire themselves, less than y.

Indeed. My impression- and I admit I understand economics about as much as a chimpanzee understands quantum physics- is that Marco essentially worked too hard, did too much and was too good at it. He was therefore too expensive to keep. It seems odd and a little outrageous to me, but that's the way it works in the current economic climate I guess (there's my poo fling for the day :)).

Problem: Marco made a high salary.
Solution: Fire him.
Better Solution: Keep him on by decreasing his paycheck.

Are you serious?? What would you say if your boss came to you and said. "We are going to cut your salary by 25% but are doubling your workload."

Be real! and how about being a little more respectful of Margaret as well. I liked a lot of the books that Marco worked on. I was sorry to see him have to leave. Give her a chance to do her job.
 
Margret Clark should be fired. She is destroying Trek single handily.

Balderdash. IIRC, Margaret Clark has been with Pocket Star Trek long before Marco, and worked on DC Comics' Star Trek before that.

The line is so much more than the editor. What are the authors? Chopped liver? The editorial team is so much more than the Senior Editor. The schedule of upcoming titles is the product of numerous people's decision-making. Margaret Clark doesn't work alone, and never has. She and her team must be guided by the marketing department and finance people, and many others.

Marc, if the 2010 schedule disgusts you so much put your money where your mouth is and quit now. Don't buy any more Star Trek. Leave it for those of us who appreciate the expertise of the whole of Pocket's editorial team.

Problem: Marco made a high salary.
Solution: Fire him.
Better Solution: Keep him on by decreasing his paycheck.

So glad you're not my boss.
 
^ The novelization sold quite well, as I recall, hitting the bestseller list. Of course, whether that audience will be there next year, outside of the flash-in-the-pan excitment of the film, and whether that audience will be as keen on original material, remains to be seen.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Novelizations are slightly different beasts from books that are further adventures though.

People on the whole don't buy books anyway. People on the whole barely read at all. But people who do buy books, people who enjoy reading in general, do, in fact, buy books based on films they went to see. That's the whole reason the tie-in industry exists. The very fact that there is a Trek Literature forum for us to be having this discussion on proves that people do buy books on the basis of their visual-media interests.

My X-Men and Spider-Man novels were scheduled to coincide with the theatrical release of X-Men: The Last Stand and the home video release of Spider-Man 3 (or was it the other way around?). The only reason I did an X-Men novel at all was because Marvel and Pocket wanted a book to tie in with the movie release. Why would they have bothered if nobody ever bought books based on movies they'd seen? The publishing industry has operated for a long time on the assumption that people do buy books based on movies they've seen, and if that were untrue, then the industry would've stopped thinking that way by now, don't you think?

Clearly tie-ins sell, obviously they wouldnt exist. But I wasnt saying that no one would buy these books, I was saying that the hope that loads of new readers would come into a book shop next year, looking for books based on the film they saw, therefore it is better to market them in a block and make an event of it, rather than make the schedule more appealing to the established reader base by varying the titles over the year, seems to be wasted effort, because, as you yourself say, barely anyone buys books anyway.

Maybe I will be wrong and these books will sell huge, and if that happens, great.
 
seems to be wasted effort, because, as you yourself say, barely anyone buys books anyway.

1% of the huge audience who saw JJ's "Star Trek" is a sizable demographic, worthy of capturing and selling books to.

I dont disagree, it would be huge numbers and great for the book line to get them, I just dont think it will happen (due to the nature of books) thats all.
 
By my very abstract math, 1% - 2% could be as many as 50,000 readers. If they were to sell that well, or even half that well, to that many new readers, plus the previously established readership who will buy the JJVerse books, then it will definetly be a big W on Pocket's scorecard.

Helping to keep the line healthy will ensure more books from all the various trek series, in the future. As an avid treklit reader I want the line to succeed. If this means 4 books outside of the already established series that we all know and love, then by all means, they should do it. Pocket has already drastically reduced their trek output over the last few years, so anything to make it even more popular, especially with some new readers, is just good business :).
 
Problem: Marco made a high salary.
Solution: Fire him.
Better Solution: Keep him on by decreasing his paycheck.

Always pre-supposing that he wouldn't say "fuck that, I can get a better job elsewhere" like a normal person.

Normally yes but the way the economy is today where people are being pink slipped left and right, I'd be happy to take the decrease if it meant I still have a job.

And Jag's right. Perhaps I'm judging to quickly. I should wait for the books to appear before judging.
 
I'm going to have to jump on the bandwagon of dislike for bumping up the DS9 relaunch to "catch up". The problem with the way that series has been handled lately certainly isn't that it's not chronologically where the other books are, but that the books have come out so damned spread out for one reason or another. And now it looks like we'll be waiting OVER a year to get another book after the two this year and there'll only be one. Sigh. Aventine sort of counts.. I suppose. I always respected and appreciated DS9 doing it's own thing at it's own pace, and from the posts here, it seems like most other folks did too. What a bummer. I hope we don't watch plot threads left dangling or wrapped up too quickly in order to make the leap forward and get it in step with what is clearly Pocket's direction for 24th century Trek.

How the heck is there a new David R. George DS9R book announcement that I feel bummed about? Weird. I guess we'll wait and see. Here's hoping.
 
Yeah okay I get that but why Marco out of all the Trek editors there? And what happened to Ed Schlesinger and Jennifer Heddle? Don't they edit Trek to in some form because if that's the case, why isn't the workload split among those 3?

I'm actually curious about this... Schlesinger edits the New Frontier novels, right? I'm curious how the who will be editing what series (strange quirk of mine)... I can't imagine Margaret is going to do it all (though, she would deserve some insane kudos for the attempt :rommie:).

Know what I want for next year? A Crucible trade paperback with all the extra material the hardcover was going to receive. That would be sweet. :drool:
 
Has it even been stated yet whether or not the DS9 "jump" will be permanent? If not, someone should find out for sure, and fast! We're all going a little nutz in here with the speculation :scream:...
 
^ Even a non-permanent jump has its problems. Even if it really is only one one-off fullblown 2382 DS9 novel many things will be set in stone so to speak, and that actually will be a damper for the creative freedom of whoever is writing DS9 novels set in the gap, since there are a lot of things already established. So if sometime after DRG III's novel is released someone has a really great idea how to move the series forward nobody thought about beforehand, they might can't do it because the 2382 novel already has established something that would be contradicted by the new idea.
 
^ Even a non-permanent jump has its problems. Even if it really is only one one-off fullblown 2382 DS9 novel many things will be set in stone so to speak, and that actually will be a damper for the creative freedom of whoever is writing DS9 novels set in the gap, since there are a lot of things already established. So if sometime after DRG III's novel is released someone has a really great idea how to move the series forward nobody thought about beforehand, they might can't do it because the 2382 novel already has established something that would be contradicted by the new idea.

I can understand that... kind of. New Frontier had a jump forward of three plus years, from post-Dominion War 2376 to 2379, and that worked out. At the time I half expected PAD to release a book that covered some character points from the interim years. This of course, never happened, other than a short story featuring one of the characters (Zak Kebron) in the Dominion War from the NF anthology, No Limits. Perhaps, if DS9 stays with the rest of the 24th century books in the 2380's, a new anthology will be written featuring the DS9-R crew at various points in the 2377-2382 block.

...or

Maybe it's like Lost or Alias or (insert show here) where the jump in time facilitates the telling of various stories in flashbacks. We'll see DS9 people in 2382, but we won't know everything that has happened in the the last few years of their lives. Maybe some have died, or resigned, or...who knows :).

The possibilities are endless. This may turn out to be the best thing to happen to the DS9-R. Only time will tell :cool:.
 
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