[Kirok]

Day 01 - Welcome
For the fifth year in a row, the Twelve Trek Days of Christmas sets out bravely to celebrate the year we are just leaving behind and to give you a taste of what you can expect in the coming year.

Why do I do it? My son asked me this very question earlier today and I easily came up with a number of reasons, but perhaps the most important of all is that it is my personal statement about my faith in my fellow men.

With all due respect to the Christian roots of Christmas as a religious celbration, it is the Christmas message of "Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all men" that is of primary interest to me at this time. Just those two aspects are reason enough to cherish this tradition, plus the fact that this is understood and respected by every caring, moral person on the globe whether they be Christian, Humanist, Hebrew, Buddhist or Moslem. The globalisation of Christmas could be the closest that humanity comes to standing as one brotherhood of mankind and Star Trek is my chosen way of expressing this.

To all those who celebrate Christmas - and to those who do not - I would like to share with you my wish for your continuing health, happiness and prosperity. We have more things to tie us together than we have things that keep us apart, whether it is a shared love of Star Trek or the higher, humanitarian ideals of IDIC.

Over the next twelve days let us share with you the things that amused and amazed us in Star Trek fandom.

Kirok of L'Stok
Director of Media, TrekUnited

[jespah]

... looking for some awesome reading material, as always ...

[Kirok]

jespah, on 26 December 2011 - 07:44 PM, said:

... looking for some awesome reading material, as always ...

one reason I might complete this without ending up a basket case is because we've got Jespah working on the Blog pages! Doing this is much appreciated! Thanks muchly!

K

[tish]

Thank you both for your work here for TU! Saw some of the twitter posts for this, love it!

[jespah]

My aim is to make Kirok 3/4 of a basket case ...

[jespah]

Day 6 is up, and it's about Adult Trek! It includes information on works from some familiar faces, like

• Aquarius
• Mr. Picard

... and, yeah, even me.

Adult Trek is more than sex and violence - it is about inner explorations, the kinds of things we often even hide from ourselves.

Blog comments are always welcome. Thank you for reading!

[Kirok]

Happy New Year to all!

Personally I see a bright year for fan fiction <1>, mainly because we are breaking down the barriers of digital media. Five years ago digital video created fan films, broadly speaking. Digital audio distribution re-invented the radio-play as the audio drama and technology is doing exactly the same for animation, comics and graphic novels.

Fan production reflects professional production in most respects and digital publishing is revolutionising the publishing industry. Consider that it has been twelve months since E-book versions of the top six books, and 19 of the top 50, outsold their print versions <2>, that Kindle's new Fire tablet has, since its launch, sold more units than any other single item on Amazon.com <3> and that eBook publishing is something that does not require the massive printing and publishing establishment.

The professional publishing industry will weather these turbulent times, I'm sure, but the burning question for fan fiction authors is, what does this mean to us?

It will not make a copper sou's worth of difference to our copyright standing - we exist, and always will, at the sufference of the copyright owners - but it will make the world of difference to our ability to bridge the gap between readers and writers. TrekUnited Publishing is distributing selected fan fiction in pdf Trekzines & paperbacks on Issuu <4> and as mobi & ePub eBooks on Richard Merk's Star Trek Fanfiction eBook Archive <5>, with advertising over Facebook & Twitter. Small beginnings, to be sure, and we aren't on our own, a number of authors are putting things online themselves.

Exciting times, friends! Exciting times!

Kirok of L'Stok Director of Media, TrekUnited

SOURCES:
<1> http://twelvedays2011.blogspot.com/
<2> http://www.usatoday....ales05_ST_N.htm
<3> http://latimesblogs....d-per-week.html
<4> http://issuu.com/trekunited
<5> http://merknet.com/ebooks/