Trivia / Stratemeyer Syndicate

• Channel Hop: In 1979, after the original publishers Grossett and Dunlap did very little to celebrate the Hardy Boys 50th anniversary in 1977 and gave the Stratemeyer Syndicate a resounding "meh" when asked about Nancy's 50th in 1980, the Syndicate decided to sever ties with them and move both series over to Simon and Schuster (after a rather ugly court case). The series were then moved to paperback, and S&S decided to experiment with the format, both going Lighter and Softer (with Spin-Off Babies series like The Nancy Drew Notebooks and The Hardy Boys are: The Clues Brothers) and Darker and Edgier (The Nancy Drew Files, The Hardy Boys Casefiles). Both franchises are cranking out new books to this day.
• Money, Dear Boy: A large number of the ghostwriters were primarily journalists writing the books while moonlighting for extra cash. The salary varied due to the ebbs and flows of the publishing industry, but by many accounts the writers were paid well. (Roughly $100 per book, which, compared to journalist's salaries at the time, approximated six weeks salary for a book which might be four-weeks work.) Leslie McFarlane (the Hardy Boys original ghostwriter) in particular grew to hate writing the books (calling them "those damn juveniles") but kept getting roped back in to feed his family.
  • Reportedly, he eventually refused to continue writing books for The Dana Girls, in which he had to write about multiple female characters while using a female pseudonym, arguing that "starvation seemed preferable".