Why Did the DS9 Technical Manual Sell So Poorly?

[Dayton3]

A couple of years ago when we were talking about technical manuals and the reasons more were not published, someone from Pocket Books IIRC came in and said that though they couldn't get into actual sales figures, the ST:TNG Technical Manual sold MORE THAN TEN TIMES as many copies as the DS9 Technical Manual.

Now,

1) I know that DS9 wasn't as popular as ST:TNG.

&

2) the DS9 Manual had some errors in it that fans didn't like (mainly in the starship section at the end).

But still:

The DS9 Manual was still a beautifull, glossy, very high production value piece of work.

So while I can understand why its sales were not as strong as the ST:TNG manual...............but less than ONE TENTH?

Why?

 

[JD]

I know absolutely nothing about either of the books, but one thing that might have had an impact was the fact that DS9 wasn't quite as tech based as TNG.

 

[SchwEnt]

(I have both, but I don't recall the years of release)

I'll guess perhaps the drop in sales was due to the internet.
By the time the DS9 TM was released, much of the imagery and data was available
off the internet, hence the drop in sales. Not so much that it was better or worse than TNG TM.

Sound reasonable??

 

[Smiley]

DS9 is not an object in motion after the pilot and didn't deal with as many tech-based stories and anomalies, so there's less reason to know the nitty-gritty details of the station's specs.

 

[Dayton3]

Nothing of the quality of the DS9 technical manual was available online when it was released.

This was something like 1991 IIRC.

And I have trouble understanding the advantages of the internet involving things like technical manuals.

Even with the most advanced laptop and high speed connections, an actual book is still more convenient and handy.

 

[Trent Roman]

Nothing of the quality of the DS9 technical manual was available online when it was released. This was something like 1991 IIRC.

Deep Space Nine only premiered in 1993, Dayton, and the book itself was released in 1998. See, the usefulness of the Internet is, you could have verified your dates in less than ten seconds.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Dayton3]

Nothing of the quality of the DS9 technical manual was available online when it was released. This was something like 1991 IIRC.

Deep Space Nine only premiered in 1993, Dayton, and the book itself was released in 1998. See, the usefulness of the Internet is, you could have verified your dates in less than ten seconds.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Thanks Trent.

I must've been thinking of the ST:TNG Manual. Wasn't it early 1990s?

I still prefer actual manuals you can get your hands on than website stuff

 

[Greg Cox]

Maybe people figured the basic technology wouldn't be all that different from the stuff in the previous Technical Manual? Why buy another book on how transporters and phasers and holodecks work?

(And, yeah, I know DS9 had some cool Cardassian tech installed, but I can see people figuring that they pretty much knew the basics already. Why pay $17.95 for a lot of the same information all over again?)

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The sales of the TNG and DS9 Tech Manuals aren't really comparable; they were released nearly ten years apart, so of course the TNG manual will have sold more over its lifespan. And the TNG Tech Manual was released at a time when Star Trek was big, pop-culture shit. Star Trek has fallen a good ways from that pinnacle, and it was falling when the DS9[/i] Tech Manual was released.

In short, there are structural reasons why the TNG Tech Manual sold better. Star Trek was more popular at the time. It had a lower price point than the DS9 manual did.

The question you want to ask, Dayton3, is whether or not the DS9 Tech Manual sold to expectations. (Which would have been, for structural reasons, lower than the TNG Tech Manual sold. There really is a science in how well things sell.) And truthfully, I don't know what Pocket's sales expectations were for the book.

But really. You can't compare two books released nearly ten years apart. There's no meaningful conclusions to be drawn there.

 

[Valin]

Why didn't DS9's Tech Manual sell as well? Because of those bloody Cardassians.

 

[Intelligence]

For me it was overpriced ... I saw it once in the book store, one single issue priced 50 Mark then (25 Euro). I still was at school and that was way too much money. Later I have never seen it ever again in a book store.

 

[Mr Light]

I proudly bought the DS9 tech manual when it first came out, and I thought it was pretty cool. It was the first time we ever got a clear concise view of the layout of the station, and it had a lot of other great stuff as well. Plus it was all color, the TNG was only two color if I recall correctly. And! Fold out pages! Of course DS9 was my favorite of the Treks.

 

[Wowbagger]

I read it cover to cover at the library, just because I am a nerd in the extreme, but I've never had to go back and reference it. The Tech Manuals are useful mainly for the technology entries, and, you know, you've seen one transporter cycle table, you've seen 'em all.

With the advent of Memory-Alpha and Beta, I very much doubt I would ever purchase a tech manual again.

 

[Dayton3]

I felt the DS9 Technical Manual should've sold better because:

1) It's production values were higher than any previous tech manual.

2) The DS9 station was less clearly defined in the series than the Enterprise in ST:TNG had been. I wasn't even sure of how Ops was laid out

3) The Defiant was featured heavily in the manual. I was under the impression that the Defiant had a major "cool factor" among Trek fans.

 

[garak1]

I feel the major reason why the DS9 Technical Manual sold so poorly was that the series simply wasn't as popular as TNG.

It's a shame, really. While the DS9 Technical Manual did have a lot of technical errors in the starship section, most of it was really good, detailed stuff, particularly the actual information about the station.

I also remember the beautiful images throughout the book, most of them computer generated, that made the book all the more vivid. I flick through it occassionally just to see the pictures alone.

The disappointing DS9 TM sales probably contributed somewhat to the lack of a Voyager TM, which I would have loved to have seen.

 

[Sean Aaron]

I have both tech manuals (and the Franz Joseph one for TOS) and the DS9 one is very nice. The DS9 Companion is also superior in many was to the TNG Companion with a lot more behind-the-scenes stuff which I wish was in the TG Companion, but like the Technical Manuals, I put it down to lessons learned.

My lingering question: I've got the Enterprise-D blueprints, and my Enterprise Refit blueprints (The Motion Picture merchandise), but I'd really like to see a DS9 blueprint set -- including one-page schematics of a standard-issue runabout and a small set of blueprints for The Defiant...where are they?

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ They're with the updated Encyclopedia, Chronology, VGR technical manual, ENT companion, and the Betazoid Wedding Manual of Style.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

the Betazoid Wedding Manual of Style.

I wonder how Christopher is coming with writing that....

Seriously, though.

Dayton3, we can wish until the day is done that the DS9 Tech Manual sold better than it did. As I explained above, it was never going to match the TNG Tech Manual sales. (And at a guess, was it J.J. Ordover who trotted out the "sold ten times better" statistic? That sounds so like one of the apples-to-oranges strawman comparisons he liked to use in Internet arguments.)

It's a gorgeous book, and I'm glad I own it, but it was a pricey niche product released at a time when that particular niche was fading away.

Frankly, I think the best bet for future books like this is if a publisher can get a Star Trek RPG off the ground, and keep it off the ground. Then there's a need for products like the tech manuals to exist.

But the mismanagement by Last Unicorn and Decipher -- and the failures of their Trek RPGs in the marketplace -- may have killed the viability of a Star Trek RPG for years to come.

 

[FalTorPan]

Why did the DS9TM sell poorly? I suspect it was a combination of factors: Trek's declining popularity, DS9 being less popular than TNG, the possible additional draw of a book about a spacecraft rather than a space station, the increasing presence of the Internet, and the fact that the DS9TM was more expensive than the TNGTM.

In other words, the reasons that everyone else has probably already mentioned.

 

[DS9forever]

I really like the almost prose-like descriptions in it. Like the commander's office facing towards Cardassia or the subspace inversion from "The Visitor" being seen on Bajor long before the wormhole was discovered.