Star Trek Vanguard: In Tempest's wake by Dayton Ward

[JD]

I don't see why, the comics with the code in the back are still the same price.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

But, as I said earlier, I had no idea the costs into publishing novella's on paper (even as a collected set) was so expensive.

It's not that it costs a lot to print them, it's just that it wouldn't be profitable because there's no print market for such short books anymore. Book buyers have become accustomed to getting tomes that are at least 300 pages long, and interest in shorter books has dried up. Also, bookstores prefer ordering books that have higher price points so that they can make more profit from them, and that's contributed to the pressure for longer books.

I'm going to throw out a wild and crazy idea.

Print-On-Demand.

The costs on POD have come down rather dramatically in the last decade. It might be a viable option for collectors or readers who absolutely have to have a dead-tree format. They'd pay a premium, true; The Struggle Within (to pull a recent example) might cost $9.99 or $12.99.

To bring this back to Star Trek literature, this would be shades of Strangers from the Sky. Everyone in the book is reading Strangers from the Sky on their eBook readers, but Kirk, because he likes the feel of physical things, has a POD version of the book made.

 

[Sho]

I'm going to throw out a wild and crazy idea.

Print-On-Demand.

So wild and crazy that I talked about it in 3-4 posts preceding yours .

 

[Mike Winters]

I'm going to throw out a wild and crazy idea.

Print-On-Demand.

So wild and crazy that I talked about it in 3-4 posts preceding yours .

It's only wild and crazy because Allyn mentioned it. You just aren't wild or crazy enough.

Mike

 

[Daddy Todd]

Tor Books will be offering all its e-books DRM-free starting soon.

Apparently "soon" is "now. I just downloaded Scalzi's Redshirts from B&N.com to the Nook for PC application, and it's DRM free.

Nice!

 

[ATimson]

Apparently "soon" is "now. I just downloaded Scalzi's Redshirts from B&N.com to the Nook for PC application, and it's DRM free.

Scalzi's book was a special early exception (and even then retailers took a few days after release to get the note). We don't have an exact date for the rest of their catalog; I think the estimate is "late July".

 

[Sho]

While this isn't the original thread for the ebook, I thought I'd reuse this one since it has the better title. The Simon & Schuster page now has the cover:

And StarTrek.com posted the synopsis:

The U.S.S. Enterprise and other starships that participated in the final battle in the Taurus Reach have been remanded to a remote starbase. While evacuees from the station are processed and the ships repaired, restocked, and re-staffed as needed, Captain James T. Kirk is ordered to report to Admiral Heihachiro Nogura, Starbase 47’s second and final commanding officer. Through flashbacks intercut with the ongoing conversation between Kirk and Nogura, the Enterprise’s involvement in the last days of Operation Vanguard—and the conflict between Starfleet and Tholian forces at Starbase 47—is now told from the perspective of Kirk and his crew.

 

[RPJOB]

As much as I loved the saga of Vanguard, it was their story, not Kirk's. This feels like "These Are The Voyages". The final word being given over to a guest star.

I hope I'm wrong but this just feels wrong, based on the blurb.

 

[timothy]

Kirk and crew did guest star in the first book

 

[Sho]

Notably if I remember things correctly the author did prefer for it to be seen as a TOS story, so the Vanguard labeling is possibly marketing's doing.

 

[Ronald Held]

I do not see a problem with thos from a historical POV.

 

[JD]

Notably if I remember things correctly the author did prefer for it to be seen as a TOS story, so the Vanguard labeling is possibly marketing's doing.

Yeah, he said that it was supposed to be changed to TOS at some point. Apparently someone must have changed their mind. I get the feeling that this isn't really meant to be the last Vanguard story so much as an epilogue that ties it into TOS a little more.

 

[timothy]

That will be cool gives me a chance to reread the other books.

 

[Patrick O'Brien]

^The cover makes for a cool new Avatar

 

[timothy]

I know right also turned it into wallpaper on my nook color

 

[craig keith]

Now, Christopher, don't get me wrong, but you say the option is there for anyone who's willing to use it. Now, I'm appereantly not willing, simply because it's not my cup of tea. You make it sound like I have a choice. But I don't, not really. If I want to read these books, I'm not given an option how to read it. The only option I have is to read or not to read, to buy or not to buy.

You do have a choice. You could choose to read e-books occasionally, even while preferring paper books. That's what I do. That's what I'm sure a lot of people do. But for whatever reason, you instead choose an absolute, inflexible refusal to read an e-book even once in a while. That absolute refusal to make any exception whatsoever to your normal pattern is entirely your own choice.

Obviously nobody is trying to prevent any given consumer from reading this book. It's for sale to anyone willing to pay for it. So the only thing keeping you from getting it is your own lack of willingness. That makes it a consequence of your choice.




But as I've explained, the current print market offers zero options for the publication of novella-length media tie-in stories. That's simply not going to happen. E-books are what enable that option to exist in the first place. So publishing e-books does increase the number of options available -- maybe not for you as an individual, but for the audience as a whole. After all, the audience doesn't share a single uniform taste. Some people prefer print books, others prefer e-books, others prefer comics. Some prefer adult fiction, others young-adult fiction. Some prefer mass-market paperbacks, others prefer hardcovers. So it only makes sense to put out multiple products targeted to all those different audiences. Sure, if a specific customer is unwilling to give a particular format a try -- for instance, if someone doesn't believe in reading comic books, or doesn't buy hardcovers because they're too expensive -- their choice not to purchase that format will keep them from experiencing the work. But because there's a breadth of material available in different formats, there will still be something else they can enjoy. So collectively, there's something for everyone. And those customers who are willing to sample different formats can experience everything. Again, it comes down to the customers' choice of which formats they are or aren't willing to buy. There's no obligation to make every story available in every format simultaneously, otherwise there'd have to be a novelization of every comic book and vice-versa.




I don't understand the whole "not comfortable" thing as a reason for absolutely refusing to read an e-book even occasionally. Do you really expect me to believe that you've never, ever felt the slightest bit uncomfortable reading a paper book? That you've never sat in the same chair too long and gotten stiff and sore, or read a big heavy hardcover that made your arms ache to hold, or got a paper cut turning a page, or got eyestrain because the text was really small? You've never once in your entire life been willing to read under circumstances that weren't absolutely free of discomfort?

I just don't understand the absolutism of your position here. Preference for paper over e-books, I can understand. I have the same preference. But I still read e-books occasionally, particularly if it's the only or most feasible way to read a story I'm interested in. I don't understand an absolute refusal.

For that matter, if reading on a screen is so intolerable for you, then how are we having this conversation? Are you dictating your posts to a friend?




As I said before, if the work itself is enjoyable enough, then you don't even notice the discomfort of the reading situation.




Two or three, no. Four to eight, yes, of course, as they've already done fourteen times with e-book collections, so it's pretty disingenuous of you to be talking about it as if it were some daring idea that they were unwilling to contemplate. It just takes time, as I've explained.

Just to throw in my two cents into this. I prefer the dead tree format myself, but I have no objection to E-Book (my wife has a Nook Color so I could use that). My major gripe right now is the pricing model. Currently a physical MMPB book sells for $7.99 for anywhere from 300 to 400+ pages. However, the E-Book cost is $5.99 for a novella that is typically only a third to half that size. I have a hard time mentally jumping that "hurdle".

But compare it to the price of a hardcover (typically 25-28 dollars for about the same page count) or a comic book (around 4 dollars for under 2 dozen pages of story) or a DVD of a feature film (maybe 15-20 dollars for an amount of story equivalent to a short novel). If anything, the price of MMPBs is an exceptional bargain.

And while you're right about the price for The Struggle Within, didn't I read that In Tempest's Wake will be $3.99? I imagine TSW was priced more steeply because it was a test case and they weren't sure whether it would sell in enough quantity to let them make a profit at a lower price point. Since the experiment worked and they're publishing more, maybe that means they feel a lower price can be profitable. New things often go down in price once they become established and popular.

Sitting behind the computer reading a few posts is one thing, reading entire texts is another. There is a difference. I've tried reading fanfiction, I just get completely uncomfortable after a while. Can't help it.
As for the e-reader... perhaps that is more a psychological thing that physical. But everytime I've tried reading with something like it, or on a smartphone, it just doesn't work. The e-reader feels clumsy, the phone to small.

And I have tried. It just isn't working for me.

As for my comments about releasing them as a collected works, I didn't realize you needed so many novella's to make it costeffective. I figured with the average length of a novel, three would do the trick. Ofcourse it makes it a different matter altogether if it doesn't become costeffective.
But to me, buying a device that average at about 70 euro's, to read 2 or 3 novels I've wanted as e-books sofar just doesn't justify it for me. It's not costeffective for me personally.

Im sorry Mage im going to have to disagree for many reasons .. u mention you want to look at you bookcase and look at the art that there, i do the same with my kindle. I have about 100 books on there and i can see every single one of them, without the need to have a massive bookcase and tbh a massive waste of paper.

However the best thing about ebooks is that when i discover a new author, or even one that i have been reading for a long time. Kirsten Beyer comes to mind, i finished reading children of the storm and then read her acknowledgments and about the author and relised that she written an alias book. I instantly went on the kindle store and downloaded it. Now i only has seen alias in passing although i know it wasn't a bad series however because kirsten wrote it, i wanted to read it, and i downloaded and read it the next morning.

That is the beauty of ebooks and as you really don't have to have an e-reader now, you can just download the software, not buying something because you want a physical book it really just denying yourself some really good art.

As as for the cost .. you dont need to spend 70 or 80 euros, You can download the software from amazon for FREE and then just pay for the books.

 

[timothy]

Okay got mine today and it was $3.99 very cool

 

[Sho]

Oh crap, I totally forgot about the date! I'll open a review thread shortly. Thank you for the post, timothy!

 

[Ronald Held]

Ooops have to get it downloaded after finishing here.

 

[timothy]

@ sho no prob vanguard rules -