Prolific writer from New Zealand

Newguy1428 · Jun 13, 2009

All the talk about word counts and numbers of books published made me google "most prolific childrens book writer". I found one author, Prentiss Ingraham, who published 600+ books and would write a 35,000 word dime novel overnight.

Then, I discovered Joy Cowley. She has more book titles on her web page than all of us put together. Wikipedia lists her as writing 41 PBs and almost 500 basal readers. I guess you have a captive audience with those. She's an inspiration nonetheless.

http://www.joycowley.com/

cwgranny · Jun 13, 2009

Newguy1428 said:
All the talk about word counts and numbers of books published made me google "most prolific childrens book writer". I found one author, Prentiss Ingraham, who published 600+ books and would write a 35,000 word dime novel overnight.

Then, I discovered Joy Cowley. She has more book titles on her web page than all of us put together. Wikipedia lists her as writing 41 PBs and almost 500 basal readers. I guess you have a captive audience with those. She's an inspiration nonetheless.

http://www.joycowley.com/

Joy has an unusual skill at handling the very limited word counts and vocabulary lists of early phonics readers. Many, many, many of her books were written in reponse to publishers coming to her because they recognize her name. If you had a gift with that unique form of writing and invested a few years in meeting the needs of educational publishers then you too would have the ear of publishers who consider libraries and teachers their primary market as Joy is huge there.

MsJudy · Jun 13, 2009

Yep. She also has the advantage of being one of the first to write those leveled reading stories (NOT basal readers, at least not in the American sense). It's a trend that was developed Down Under, and came out of a lot of research on teaching reading especially to non-native speakers of English. Basal readers or early phonics readers control the language based on which sounds are represented by a single letter and therefore are easiest to sound out. Leveled readers like Joy writes are controlled by the natural patterns of spoken language, and by how much the picture or illustration can support a child to figure out the words.

Phonics reader: The cat sat. The fat cat sat on the mat. The rat sat on the cat.

Leveled reader: My cat can run. My cat can sit. My cat can climb. I love my cat!

Joy Cowley is also gifted at taking non-fiction topics and writing simple, factual stories about them. My favorite is her RED-EYED TREE FROG.

I would guess all of those 500 readers were written under contract for the educational publishing company. The books are not available in bookstores or teacher stores.

mercs · Jun 14, 2009

Joy Cowley's books were essentially the first most children in the UK read. I'm glad people on here aren't deminishing her achievements by saying "yeah well it's only 200 words per book, so really she's barely written one novel", as it must be one of the hardest formats to get truly right...

From a personal point of view that I can relate to (in terms of MG adventure/fantasy) I have to mention RM Ballantyne. He wrote 124 books in total -all around 80,000 words in length- and included such work as Coral Island and the Settler and the Savage. The guy was also the inspiration for Robert Louis Stephenson and William Golding...

As an added note, it's a shame his work has become almost unfashionable to the point of unknown now. Like Enid Blyton (whose had a lot of her earlier "characters" recreated to be more sensitive, I'm thinking of the gollywogs for example) Ballantyne wrote in a time of slavery and empire. Despite campaigning against both, his work does show black people as savages, does use terms like negro and eskimo that are deemed insensitive and so aren't really seen as suitable for young boys anymore...

MsJudy · Jun 14, 2009

I believe Jane Yolen is considered the most prolific American children's author. Close to 300 books published over her career.

suki · Jun 14, 2009

Yup. No one, I think, will "put down" the work of the folks mentioned in this thread. And I will never put down the work of someone who does PBs, early readers or level readers well - it's a skill set that amazes me, when done well.

But I think it is another example of knowing what the market is, and what the purpose is, and the skills involved - doing your research so you are creating a marketable product.

it's not about the "number of pages" or wordcount if the book uses words inappropriate to the purpose/reader.

And these kinds of books are often treated in publishing and the market in very different ways compared to books published for trade publication and the bookstore.

~suki

Salis · Jun 14, 2009

mercs said:
Joy Cowley's books were essentially the first most children in the UK read. I'm glad people on here aren't deminishing her achievements by saying "yeah well it's only 200 words per book, so really she's barely written one novel", as it must be one of the hardest formats to get truly right...

From a personal point of view that I can relate to (in terms of MG adventure/fantasy) I have to mention RM Ballantyne. He wrote 124 books in total -all around 80,000 words in length- and included such work as Coral Island and the Settler and the Savage. The guy was also the inspiration for Robert Louis Stephenson and William Golding...

As an added note, it's a shame his work has become almost unfashionable to the point of unknown now. Like Enid Blyton (whose had a lot of her earlier "characters" recreated to be more sensitive, I'm thinking of the gollywogs for example) Ballantyne wrote in a time of slavery and empire. Despite campaigning against both, his work does show black people as savages, does use terms like negro and eskimo that are deemed insensitive and so aren't really seen as suitable for young boys anymore...

I can't imagine it's easy, but I do think that once she fell into the groove of it, it's probably a lot faster than you might think.

To my mind, 900 30,000+ word novellas is just insane (the estimated career output of Ingraham), it's on an entirely different level from Cowley.

Prolific writer from New Zealand

Newguy1428

cwgranny

MsJudy

mercs

MsJudy

suki

Opinionated

Salis

You Lie!