Who'd Have Thought They'd Lead You Back Here Where We Need You?
Some Familiar Equipment from Pike's Enterprise on Display at Star Trek: Mission Chicago, April 2022
The most commonly reported statistic on Star Trek tie-in fiction is that its readership is generally about 1-2% of the larger audience for the franchise as a whole.
To that end, the relentless pace of new releases in this franchise has given me yet another prompt with the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, leading to the latest in this series of updates to go along with those I did when the Kelvin Timeline movies came out in 2009, 2013, and 2016; as well as after Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017 and after Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Lower Decks premiered in 2020.
In the hope that a rising tide raises all boats, then, and a larger audience for both Strange New Worlds (and all the other series of this era) equals a larger audience for the tie-ins, let's move some paper and list the most recent Star Trek outings by people on my friendslist.
To prevent redundancy, I'm only listing those people who've published something or will be doing so soon since that last promotional post two years ago:
Keith R.A. DeCandido (kradical) continues to write numerous pieces for Tor.com about the franchise, including a long-running rewatch series currently working through Star Trek: Enterprise and reviews of new episodes as they air.
Jim Johnson (the former ineti) remains the Project Manager for Star Trek Adventures, working with Modiphius Entertainment since the game's inception to develop and write The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook along with everything that followed.
David Mack (the former infinitydog) most recently contributed Oblivion's Gate, the final volume in the Coda trilogy conceived as the conclusion of the ongoing literary continuity which had been running for over twenty years. Despite that goal, his upcoming TOS novel Harm's Way is advertised as a continuation of the literary Star Trek: Vanguard storyline. He also continues to serve as a consultant for both Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy.
Una McCormack (altariel) most recently contributed Wonderlands, a Star Trek: Discovery novel detailing what Michael Burnham was doing during her "offscreen" year early in the third season, and has already written Second Self, a delayed Star Trek: Picard novel which takes place between the first and second seasons of that series. She is also once again the "editor" of The Autobiography of Mr. Spock, as she was for the similar volume about Kathryn Janeway.
Scott Pearson (the former scottpearson) continues to be the Canon Editor for Star Trek Adventures as a whole and the copy editor for most of the recent Star Trek novels from Simon & Schuster.
James Swallow (jmswallow) most recently contributed The Dark Veil, a Picard prequel novel primarily about William Riker and Deanna Troi on this continuity's version of the Titan; and The Ashes of Tomorrow, the second volume in the aforementioned Coda trilogy.
Dayton Ward (daytonward) most recently contributed Moments Asunder, the first volume in the aforementioned Coda trilogy, though I'm sure the lack of titles for him here compared to my last update belies more prolific contributions to the franchise which simply haven't been officially announced yet.
...and of course, my last appearance was "You Are Not in Space" in Strange New Worlds 10 (and my annotations for that short story continue to be available online for those who are interested).
Virtually all of the titles I just listed are also available in paperless formats such as Amazon Kindle, so let's move some electrons as well.
Having the latest television series share its title with the anthology series in which I appeared might've led to increased sales, if only for the coincidence--but it's mostly led to some market confusion and increased uselessness for some longstanding Google Alerts I had in place.
I was concerned about the future of Star Trek literary tie-ins back in 2017, then reassured by the pace of releases leading up to 2020...but the franchise has pulled back again, as you can tell by the newly diminished list of titles in this post. Along with facing supply-chain disruptions shared by many industries worldwide, I've gone back to worrying due to the sparse schedule of upcoming titles.
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2 195 326 in Books
Amazon Kindle Sales Rank: #1 380 377 in Kindle Store
Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #1 794 393 in Books