Shrinking ST Selection in Bookstores

[Mysterion]

Is anyone else noticing there seems to be fewer and fewr ST books on the shelves in bookstores?

The local Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Waldens have all vastly reduced the amount of ST books ont heir shelves compared to just a couple years back. Borders in particular, used ot have plenty of copies of new releases, plus a number of the older titles on-hand. Now, they have maybe a dozen of the older titles at most, and get seemingly few copies of new releases. Has demand just dropped, or what?

Also, I'm noticing the shrinkage in some of the local used bookstores where there used to be plenty of ST books on-hand, but are fewer and fewer available. Are folks just holding onto their ST books more these days?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yup, I've definitely noticed this. My Barnes & Noble has only two shelves for the books and one of them is half devoted to non-fiction books for both Trek and other science-fiction stuff (primarily Star Wars). Meanwhile, Star Wars has at least twice as many books. Bah, I say.

 

[Therin of Andor]

This is a normal trend. Bookstores increased their ST stock for TMP, ST IV, TNG and "First Contact". And shrank them in for the lulls. There's no new ST on TV at the moment, so ST collecting passes into a lean period.

ST merchandising is gearing up for an explosion of riches in November/December. Just watch!

 

[ATimson]

Part of the reason there seem to be fewer Trek books is because there are fewer Trek books nowadays; they're only publishing half as many, remember.

As for the amounts vis a vis the Star Wars line, the Star Wars publishers have a tendency to keep their entire back catalog in print, as far as I can tell, something that's not remotely the case for Trek.

 

[JD]

Actually, this seems to be true of most tie ins, at least in my area. Even the number of SW books seems to be going down, and other things like Doctor Who or Buffy are almost impossible at times.

 

[Therin of Andor]

ATimson said:
that's not remotely the case for Trek.

It was when the books were numbered and there were coupons in the back to order copies of each title from Simon & Schuster.

IIRC, the novelization of TMP held some kindd of a reprint record. ST III came out as part of the numbered series, and the first two novelizations were retro numbered. It's quite rare that novelizations are still available almost a decade after the film came out!

However, when ST IV came out unnumbered, that (to me) was the sign that Pocket didn't want the endless committment of keeping the novelizations perpetually in print. I'm sure the rise of eBook versions also took away the urgency to attempt to keep the whole ST backlist in print. Warehousing the back issues is extremely expensive.

 

[CaptainDonovin]

Emh said:
Yup, I've definitely noticed this. My Barnes & Noble has only two shelves for the books and one of them is half devoted to non-fiction books for both Trek and other science-fiction stuff (primarily Star Wars). Meanwhile, Star Wars has at least twice as many books. Bah, I say.

I have seen this as well (2 or 3 shelves in Borders here in Twin Cities stores). I'm not sure it has as much to do with there being nothing on TV, Star Wars has nothing on TV at the moment and there are a hell of a lot of them (I'm into the 3rd book of Legacy of the Force, btw) compaired to Trek. There are more older titles in SW than Trek, not sure if this means SW titles are more popular or something [ducks and hides from Trek authors].

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Don't know about comparative sells (they don't release such data), but there are some mitigating factors. First, there are far fewer Star Wars books than Trek books overall, so the Star Wars people can afford to keep most of their back catalogue active, while doing so for Trek would be exorbitant. Second, most Star Wars novels are interrelated and each book has a specific chronological slot in the ongoing, overall storyline, such that new readers to the Star Wars novels will feel more compelled to pick up older books (and more likely to complain if they're missing) than for Trek, where the vast majority of previous novel offerings are pretty much irrelevant to the current crop of books (with notable exceptions like the DS9R, of course).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Most of our local bookstores have a LOT more SW books than Trek.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Here in Los Angeles the bookstores near me seem to have the same amount of Star Trek novels and Star Wars novels.

 

[Steve Roby]

I think I've been seeing "there aren't as many Trek books in the bookstores as there used to be" posts on Trek sites about as long as there have been Trek sites. Not that I'm disagreeing, I'm just saying that it's not something new.

The decrease in the number of books published annually and the fact that Pocket doesn't keep everything in print forever are the two main symptoms of the real cause: Star Trek just isn't as popular as it used to be. The number of books published annually, official and unofficial, peaked in the mid-1990s, when TNG was hugely popular.

Then, of course, the Star Wars prequels started appearing in 1999. They turned out to be pretty popular -- a hell of a lot more popular than the Trek movies. If you look at the various SF bookseller lists published monthly in Locus magazine, Star Wars pretty much always outsells Star Trek.

So... what would you expect the booksellers to do?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

But there hasn't been anything Star Wars related in several years and yet they still have twice as many books as Star Trek.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Emh said:
But there hasn't been anything Star Wars related in several years and yet they still have twice as many books as Star TRek.

Most shops I frequent give equal space to ST and SW these days.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Maybe it's just a US thing, then. Still, it's damn annoying.

 

[KRAD]

^ It's not "just a US thing." It's a bookstore thing. I go to one NYC bookstore, and SW outnumbers ST. I go to another and it's equal. I go to a third and ST outnumbers SW. It really varies depending on the SF book buyer at the particular chain bookstore....

 

[bok2384]

It's far worse in the UK. I went into three bookshops in town this afternoon and only found Star Trek books in one shop, and there was only three books there. In contrast the other stores had around a shelf of Star Wars and three shelves of Doctor Who books (although I like these too and eventually bought one (-.

I'm just glad I get all my Trek fiction via eBooks from eReader.com and booksonboard.com.

 

[BrotherBenny]

KRAD said:
^ It's not "just a US thing." It's a bookstore thing.

Agreed, the local chains here in the UK stock generally more than twice as many SW books as ST books, and even the dedicated cult stores like Forbidden Planet have a dwindling stock. The best place to buy new ST books is online and the best place to buy the older ones is, well, online unless you have a good second-hand scifi/fantasy bookshop nearby.

 

[Holytomato]

Bookstores around me have MORE Star Trek and Doctor Who books than Star Wars.

 

[ronny]

The independent store I go to in San Francisco usually has about twice as many ST books as SW books. And I buy about 95% of my ST books there to encourage that behavior. And to support independent book stores...

 

[Ktrek]

I remember in the mid 1990's my local Hasting's bookstore, and this is a small town, had about six to eight shelves full of Star Trek books. Not a single title that was in print would be missing from their shelves. Whenever a new Star Trek book was released they always had 20 or more copies for sale. Now when I go into the store there is not even one full shelf dedicated to Star Trek and Star Wars has 4 or 5. And if they even have copies of the latest release it's usually only one.

My local Barnes and Nobles store usually has about 2 shelves for Star Trek and about five shelves of Star Wars.

Even the local used bookstore no longer will buy Star Trek books unless they are very recent titles, and they have reduced their inventory down to carrying about a quarter of what they used to carry.

Such is life. Trends come and they go. We can only hope that JJ Abrams new film will fan the flames that once burned so bright into renewed interest in the franchise as a whole.

Kevin