How do they do that??
As a child, I never questioned how an author managed to pump out a book a month. I simply convinced my father, or my mom, or my grandparents to drive me to the bookstore to pick up the latest. At one point the closest bookstore would hold copies of the latest Babysitters' Club or Nancy Drew until I arrived to pick it up. I never questioned that there was no humanly possible way for an author to write and publish a book so quickly. I simply took for granted that it happened. I knew that the first Tuesday of the Month (or was it Thursday?) I would get a ride up to B. Dalton and pick up my book. Then I'd rush home to devour it as fast as I could.Now that I've been part of the writing community for a while, I understand that something in this equation doesn't fit. Sure, if your book is one of three, the publishers might distribute them back to back across three or maybe four months. But something's fishy when you have over 100 books coming out once a month. How do they do that?
The Today Show partially answered my question the other day. They had the YA author Erin Hunter on their show to participate in their Kids' Book Club. She writes the series The Hunters, and has a new series, The Seekers, out in stores now. There are dozens in her Hunters series, and I have students who can't finish them fast enough. On the show, Al introduced us to Erin Hunter. Only Erin isn't her real name. In fact, not only is it a pseudonym, but Erin is really a total of 3 authors! Apparently Victoria Holmes is the brains behind the operation. She comes up with the storylines and makes sure there is consistency from book to book. She then passes her ideas off to either Cherith Baldry or Kate Gary to write the actual book. They three work together to produce each of the books and according to their website, chose to write under one pseudonym to avoid shelving confusion. 
I'll be honest, this totally blew me away when I learned the truth. I mean, most of us know that Carolyn Keen doesn't actually write the Nancy Drew books any more. That's a pretty well known secret. I know of several author teams who use a combination of their two names as the pseudonym for their books. I totally get the idea of collaborating and writing together...but this is way different. I'm intrigued, and at the same time as a writer I can't imagine turning my work over like that.
So what about you? What do you think of my new discovery?
Labels: books, pseudonyms
posted by Erin @ 8:00 AM
1 Comments:
there never was a carolyn keene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Keene
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