![]() ![]() Stratemeyer would dream up a new series, write a 3-page outline for each volume, and then turn over the outline to a contract writer to finish. Both decisions proved to be wildly successful. The first was to ask his publishers to lower the price of his books from about $1.25 to 50 cents each and the second, spurred by overwhelming demand, was to hire other writers to flesh out his ideas. ![]() In The Secret of the Stratemyer Syndicate: Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the Million Dollar Fiction Factory, Carol Billman writes that Stratemeyer was in the midst of “The Rover Boys,” “The Outdoor,” “Deep Sea,” and other series, when he took two major steps around 1906. ![]() What mattered most was that the product should possess a certain distinctive feel, and yet remain consistent from book to book. His central-and perhaps unsettling-insight was that, when it came to series fiction, it didn’t matter who in particular wrote the stories. He had sold several dime novels and was already a prolific writer himself before he hit on what was to become his hit-generating, money-making formula. Stratemeyer, the son of German immigrants, was born and lived in New Jersey. ![]()
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