Will There Ever Be An ENT Companion?

[I am not Spock]

I really miss Trek nonfiction books of any kind, actually. I miss the Companions, Tech Guides, and Encyclopedias.
ENT needs its own companion, for sure. And the Trek Encyclopedia needs an update. The latest edition is from 1999!

Ditto to everything you said.

So there's no market for a companion for a Star Trek series, but enough market to publish two volumes for Firefly? ha

The licensing fee on a ST book is higher.

ENT's audience was a tiny fraction of TNG and TOS.

I assume the "Firefly Episode Guide: An Unofficial, Independent Guide to Joss Whedon's Firefly" is from a small publisher with few overheads. We know they paid no license fee.

Just because a book is about Star Trek doesn't necessarily mean it has to be licensed. I have a whole slew of unoffcial non-fiction Trek books not authorized by Paramount such as the Guide to New Trek, and all of the Nitpickers books... I could go on.

The issue is marketabliity. Even an independent needs to see a light at the end of the tunnel and apparently someone did with Firefly.

-Shawn

Yeah, I've got a ton of those unlicensed Trek reference books, too. I really miss the Nitpickers Guides. I also enjoyed those non-official episode guides like the New Trek Guide, because as they weren't sactioned by Paramount, the authors were free to speak about their own opinions on the episodes, and could say the eps sucked if they wanted to.

The DS9 Companion is the way to go. It tells the story, warts and all.
The VOY Companion was disappointing, because it didn't have any behind-the-scenes gossip in it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I have a whole slew of unoffcial non-fiction Trek books not authorized by Paramount such as the Guide to New Trek, and all of the Nitpickers books... I could go on.

And when Paramount ordered a few books off the shelves for copyright infringement ("Secret Fighting Arts of the Warrior Race Volume 1 - betleH yIqel" and "Joy of Trek: How to Enhance Your Relationship With a Star Trek Fan"), all the other non licensed Trek books became so much harder to market. For example, the publishers of the "Nitpickers' Guides" (which didn't even infringe), decided not to do further volumes, simply because if they did get something wrong, they couldn't afford a lawsuit, or to pulp the books.

A judge ruled that "Joy of Trek" had "... summaries of the show's plots and characters copied too much from the series and could not be justified as 'fair use'. Under the fair use doctrine, copyrighted material can be used for such writings as parodies, reviews and scholarly works."

See also:
http://www.vidiot.com/bookwar.html
http://www.well.com/~sjroby/lostbooks.html