What I would LOVE: A Visual Dictionary to Star Trek XI...

[Roald]

Okay, so Star Charts sold terribly... I think it's even more terrible that Pocket Books seemingly decided to never, ever produced a reference book about Trek anymore... I would probably kill for a new edition of the Encyclopedia, and I sure would totally LOVE a Visual Dictionary on Trek XI. I mean, there's even a great looking one on Monsters Inc. for crying out loud..! I think the film has so much incredible designs, ranging from ships to aliens to planets, etc.

I know Star Wars probably (still) sells better than Trek on just about every level. But come on: there are many new SW reference books out every year, could there be just some Trek please....?

 

[Kpnuts]

I'm very disappointed at the lack of reference books for the new film. There isn't a single one!! Where is the 'Behind the Scenes' or 'The Art of Star Trek'. And agreed, a Visual Dictionary would be great!

Is it possible they'll be released at a later date? That doesn't sound likely though, surely the best idea is to tie it all in with the release of the movie!?

 

[Roald]

Does anyone know yet if there are any new plans to release reference books concerning Trek 11? I was in Boston last year, and saw this marvelous reference book about the Friday The 13th films (!) at Borders... Now are you gonna tell me there's more interest in THAT than in the latest Trek film, which is a major success and probably made more money than all the Friday-films COMBINED..! (Okay, the Friday films made 380 million dollars combined, but you get my point).

 

[Kpnuts]

Apart from the Hines reference book coming in a year or so, there will be absolutely nothing.

ALL big movies and blockbusters have books released, behind the scenes, the art of, visual companions etc

Pretty disgraceful if you ask me.

 

[brandnewfan]

I usually enjoy the reference books more than the 1000s of novels they release. Don't get me wrong, I love the novels too. An updated encyclopedia would be nice and is long overdue.

 

[Gojira]

Apart from the Hines reference book coming in a year or so, there will be absolutely nothing.

ALL big movies and blockbusters have books released, behind the scenes, the art of, visual companions etc

Pretty disgraceful if you ask me.

I agree. I am so disappointed that there is not a reference book or some other book like a "making of" type book to go along with this movie.

 

[Steven Of Nine]

Who'd have thought, in this age of overexposure and marketing that there would be a tie-in we didn't have!?

 

[Omega_Glory]

Star Charts? You mean the Star Trek maps published in the early 80's? Those were worth hundreds of $$$ after just a few short years (late 80's)...until TNG killed the collectors market with millions of Trek toys, books, ect.

 

[MvRojo]

Star Charts? You mean the Star Trek maps published in the early 80's? Those were worth hundreds of $$$ after just a few short years (late 80's)...until TNG killed the collectors market with millions of Trek toys, books, ect.

He meant this Star Charts book that was released in 2002.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Cha...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244486720&sr=8-1

 

[Therin of Andor]

ALL big movies and blockbusters have books released, behind the scenes, the art of, visual companions etc
Pretty disgraceful if you ask me.

But... if you've noticed, many of those "Visual Dictionary" style books of late have covered trilogies and film series: eg. the four "Indiana Jones" movies in one volume, the three "Shrek" films in one volume, the above-mentioned "Friday the Thirteenth" films in one volume, a range of Pixar films in one volume, and the three "Spider-Man" movies in one volume, etc.

So there's plenty of scope for letting three JJ movies unspool first, then to do a reference book to cover all three at once.

Since Pocket Books has not been very successful in recent decades at getting a non fiction ST to be a profit bonanza it was probably sensible to wait this film out. Imagine if the film had been a flop, and warehouses were once again filled with unwanted ST reference books.

A reminder, too, that the popular "DK" imprint originally belonged to a very successful British publisher called "Dorling-Kindersley". That company went out of business when they threw way too much capital into a few "sure-fire" hits: a "Visual Dictionary" and an "Amazing Cutaways" book for a film called "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace". A huge money-making film, but those books refused to budge fast enough - and the publisher went to the wall. Many thousands of those books were sent off to be pulped.

For a "DK" style book, Pocket would be paying a license fee to Paramount/CBS for the ST license and to whoever now owns the "DK" imprint. If I understand the situation correctly.

Star Charts? You mean the Star Trek maps published in the early 80's? Those were worth hundreds of $$$ after just a few short years (late 80's)...until TNG killed the collectors market with millions of Trek toys, books, ect.

You're describing "Star Trek Maps" (1980), which became "rare" when Bantam Books lost the ST license to Pocket Books and Bantam's distributor dumped the item at remaindered stores before many people were able to order in a retail quantity. I got mine brand new for $4.00, ans still mostly-shrinkwrapped in torn cellophane, in early 1981, from a remaindered books store.

And TNG didn't kill off ST licensing. When TNG finished, most of the general public viewers, who'd been propping up the sales potential of TNG, simply moved on to a different franchise... instead of DS9.

 

[Dream]

Apart from the Hines reference book coming in a year or so, there will be absolutely nothing.

ALL big movies and blockbusters have books released, behind the scenes, the art of, visual companions etc

Pretty disgraceful if you ask me.

Yeah, that sucked. Would it have killed Paramount to release several behind the scenes Star Trek books? Hopefully they step up for the sequel.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Would it have killed Paramount to release several behind the scenes Star Trek books?

Possibly. Quite possibly. As I said, SW: TPM killed Dorling-Kindersley.

In any case, it was Pocket Books whose livelihood would have been under threat if they did reference books for the movie, and the fans showed no interest in buying them.

 

[Kpnuts]

I'm HOPING they're working on something to tie in with the DVD release, now that the film has been so popular.

 

[Nick Ryder]

Well what I wouldn't mind is a well done "book" on a CD or DVD that would let you see some of the good high-rez HD pics of the various sets, pre-production artwork/animatics etc. Costume tests, effects tests, things that you can't really show in a book.

Part of the problem with some of the books is that while they sold well initially , they didn't have legs to really sell on their own. I recall buying "Art of Star Trek" for like $20 bucks and that was a $50 book. (it was less than half price - can't remember if it was $50 or not) but even so there are so many books that I've seen in the Bargain racks at Barnes and Noble after sitting on the regular racks for YEARS. True they sell early on, but I dunno... could be a number of factors that kill the reference book market.

1. Loss of the fan clubs - there simply aren't as many local fan clubs anymore, not like during the 80s and early 90s. I live in Milwaukee, a rather big area and there's not ONE Star Trek club active anymore. I even tried to start one and got a very weak response. I even really tried to get some buzz going around the Season Premiere of Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3 and I did have a around 10 people come, but I had no media exposure - despite sending out news releases and this is when Sinclair (which owned the UPN affiliate and WB affiliate in town) had an evening news too.

And after Enterprise ended and Nemesis didn't do so well - more and more clubs shuttered. Even the RPG groups I used to be involved with kind of died out and went to other franchises or just got burned out in the fandom.

I can see PocketBooks seeing all that, convention attendence is down, there are fewer cons every year, so even if they thought "Well we're not going to sell millions of copies in retail, but we'd probably sell at least a few thousand copies at the convention circuits" that just isn't the reality as much as it used to be. Now with sites like Amazon.com around - which would help - the best I could ever see Pocket Books doing is an eBook/Kindle book - but that would really suck because I don't think they really do much with color do they?

Unless maybe they get enough fan reaction that makes them go "Weeeeelll... okay... but ACTUALLY BUY THE FRAKIN' THING AT FULL PRICE - Don't wait for the frakker to go on clearance okay?? OKAY?!" like Hasbro told fans when they released the "Big Millennium Falcon and AT-AP walker "If you don't buy it, then don't count on any more "big" vehicles in the future."

 

[Omega_Glory]

Star Charts? You mean the Star Trek maps published in the early 80's? Those were worth hundreds of $$$ after just a few short years (late 80's)...until TNG killed the collectors market with millions of Trek toys, books, ect.

You're describing "Star Trek Maps" (1980), which became "rare" when Bantam Books lost the ST license to Pocket Books and Bantam's distributor dumped the item at remaindered stores before many people were able to order in a retail quantity. I got mine brand new for $4.00, ans still mostly-shrinkwrapped in torn cellophane, in early 1981, from a remaindered books store.

And TNG didn't kill off ST licensing. When TNG finished, most of the general public viewers, who'd been propping up the sales potential of TNG, simply moved on to a different franchise... instead of DS9.

What TNG era shows killed was the collectors market in terms of $$$. There were just too many items produced for very much of it to be worth anything. These days, most of those toys, books, ect are just dumpster material; in terms of collector value that is.