Important: Save Trek Profic Campaign

[ShannaG]

In terms of regrouping, I am going forward with my article on the campaign to save Star Trek profic. I will be contacting some of you individually to ask if I may quote from your posts here. I hope to have it submitted by midweek, if possible.

[Reanok]

Good luck Shanna. I look forward to reading your article about the Enterprise novel and the book campaign.Trek bbs has an interesting thread what happened to certain authors that were fan favorites and why they no longer write Startrek novels.The discussion certainnly has made for interstering reading you may want to check out some of the book discussions about this and the typhon pact books too.

[EntAllat]

In terms of regrouping, I am going forward with my article on the campaign to save Star Trek profic. I will be contacting some of you individually to ask if I may quote from your posts here. I hope to have it submitted by midweek, if possible.

That's fantastic! Thanks Shanna - that may provide a shot in the arm for us to wake up the campaign.

[Glory1863]

Trek bbs has an interesting thread what happened to certain authors that were fan favorites and why they no longer write Startrek novels.

That was an interesting thread, Reanok. Thanks for mentioning it. I was pleased to see some of my favorites mentioned, particularly Diane Duane (Spock's World), but sad to see that Star Trek appears to no longer be their thing. I was surprised that Lois Tilton was reported as saying that serial tie-in books aren't her thing. I remember how much she wanted to do a Star Trek book when I took a class from her years ago. I was so happy for her when I saw her DS9 book on the shelf at B&N. I probably embarrassed myself right there in the aisle. I have since found that she did a TNG book, too, which I need to find. I wonder what happened that killed her enthusiasm? And was it Trek or Babylon Five that did it? Too bad she's no longer teaching at the college. I'd love to catch up with her. You can probably tell that she made quite an impression on me as both teacher and author.

Here's a direct link to the thread: Author Turnover: Why did they leave and where are they now?

[Reanok]

Glory I liked Lois Tilton's ds9 novel betrayal I just finished reading that book the other day. Thank you for posting the link in this thread.

[Reanok]

I checked out the author thread at Trek bbs someone asked Peter David why there haven't beenany new New Frontier book the last few years. Apparently the Startrek book editors won't give Peter an answer why he hasn't been allowed to write anymore NF .So he's writting original fantasy fiction instead.

[ShannaG]

Trek.fm posted my article this morning: Enterprise Fans Concerned about the Future of Star Trek Novels. I hope you all like it, and I hope it helps the cause.

I think I'm going to try to use it to get a response from someone at the Simon and Schuster offices, see if I can get someone there to commit to an interview or at least release an official statement.

[Reanok]

Shaanna I just read your article it's very disappointing that there won't be anew Enterprise novel.Nice to see you commenting about fans concern about the Startrek book franchise. and the new editors refuse to answer writers concerns and fans alike about why certain Startrek books series won't be published anymore.

[lfvoy]

There's a startrek writer David McIntee last year who mentioned he wanted to write a Enterprise novel.

While I know that the tie-in novels are assigned out by S&S, does anyone know if David McIntee ever even attempted to pitch this to them? In other words, do they know that there are, indeed, more authors who are interested in writing more novels?

That's another thing that occurs to me. There was a huge (and, admittedly, desperately-needed) push among Trek authors for a while to publicize the fact that the books are assigned out and that publishers aren't going to be interested in unsolicited manuscripts or untried authors. I suspect it was meant to head off what they saw as the hordes of fanfic writers out there.

But Trek's not on the small screen anymore -- and probably won't be again anytime soon, if ever -- and the fanfic has slacked off as a result. I'm active in another tiny fandom, Earth 2, and our experience was that as this happened, the overall quality actually got better because the fans who stayed active were the ones who were most dedicated and most interested in producing good work. We also tended to be older and more experienced with life in general, which is reflected in our work.

My point isn't that I think S&S should throw the doors open to fanfic authors; they tried that with SNW (and they can claim failure all they want; authors like Dafydd ab Hugh and Dayton Ward might disagree). My point is that they may have gotten so busy guarding the door that they didn't realize that the army's gone into retreat. Or, put more bluntly, they don't know that they have published authors who are interested in writing for them!

Thoughts?

[Aquarius]

I suppose it's possible, but it seems that, like with the assertion that it's about slacking sales, all we have here is a whole lot of speculation on our side, and a whole lot of silence on theirs.

Are people still trying to talk to Pocket Books and Simon and Schuster, or what?