Harlequin Mills & Boon published 135 novels by Betty Neels, with copyright dates (in my editions) from 1969 to 2001 inclusive. That’s an average of 4.1 books copyrighted per year, or one every three months. Her highest-volume year was 1975, with six copyrights; the lowest was 2000, with just two copyrights. In that 33 year span, there were nine years (27%) in which she copyrighted three books, ten (30%) with four books, and 12 years, 36% of her copyright-ing career, in which she copyrighted five books.
My land.
See graphic below, and feel free to pose questions and corrections in the comments section.
You must be some brilliant genius hidden in the archives of O_ford University!!!
ReplyDeleteBetty Francesca
Too awesome. Every time you come out with a new stats post I think you've surely gone as far as you can go, and then you top it! And I got quoted, too!
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, how did you make the graph? Excel?
Too awesome! Not 'arf bad! Whatever that means.
ReplyDeleteYou need to watch more british comedies! Arf means half. I loved watching that British gardening show with Alan Titchmarsh because I learned a funny new saying every single time I watched it. When someone would boss him around, he'd turn his nose up and say "We're not at home to Mrs.Rude". If his builder Tommy was being too careful, or trying to not get dirty, or didn't want to pickup something heavy, he'd call him a "big girl's blouse". He is the first person I ever heard ask someone else to pour tea by saying "Will you be mother?". So funny. I don't know how they ever got any work done.
DeleteB von S
Not 'arb bad is is an old cockney expression, meaning its really good. A cockney is a londoner born within the sight and sounds of the bow bells. Hope this explains it satisfactorily.
DeleteCheers dears
Thanks for the explanations! I knew 'arf means half, I just wasn't sure if "'arf bad" really meant it was good, as I always thought it did, because I had just read about "too clever by half" which turned out to be not really a complement: to be too confident of your own intelligence in a way that annoys other people. (Same as I had always thought "after a fashion" meant one was good at that something mentioned in the context when it really means one can do it, but not well.)
DeleteI heard that the church of St.Mary-le-Bow was bombed out during the London Blitz in 1941 and not restored until 1961 so no one born in those years can claim to be a true Cockney! :)
DeleteI also liked when Tommy would get snippy with Alan, and Alan would put his hands on his hips and say "Oooooh, who's she when she's at home then?", hilarious.
One more-whenever Mrs. Slocumbe of Are You Being Served? was warned that she shouldn't be out late/walk home alone/go to the pub alone, because she might get accosted by a man, would always mutter "Chance'd be a fine thing!", ha! The only shows worth watching are the old britcoms.
B von S
Used to watch Are You Being Served? in the 80s. Cannot claim to be a fan, but found it very entertaining none the less. Too weird! In a positive way, of course. Just discovered you can watch the show on YouTube.
DeleteWow! I love this. The Great Betty is amazing. I can't even get my Betty in the Wild finished.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: why do so many Harlequin books say she wrote 134 when we know she wrote 135? I even questioned my sanity and made the PRT count my books. He came up with 136. That startled me until I remembered I have two copies of Once for All Time. One of the books I bought for my Kindle says "more than 134 books," which I thought was odd.
Betty AnoninTX
Betty Caroline, I made the graph in Excel, then pasted it into Powerpoint to add the title boxes. Then I saved it as a .png so I could import it into Blogger.
ReplyDeleteBetty AnoninTX, I have always seen the "more than 134" cited, which keeps me hoping that maybe there's a 136th out there somewhere... I don't know why a publisher wouldn't be able to count an author's published works accurately. Some of the novels seem not to have been published as stand-alones (like Dearest Eulalia and A Christmas Romance, so maybe that creates confusion.
To quote my British Army neighbor.....this chart is "bloody amazing"!
ReplyDeleteThat final push....did she know the end was near? Was she sick in 2000, then rallied in 2001 to pump out as many stories as she could in the time she had left? Yes, it is unnerving!
And A Small Slice of Summer has to get at least a Boeuf en Croute for the accurate rendering of Sarajevo. Background research points, please!
Hello
DeleteI'm new here but wanted to mention that Harlequin/Boon Mills typically gives itself three years to publish a novel once they purchase it from the author. During this time, they edit, typeset, have cover art created, print, etc. They like to have quite a few works in the hopper. So my guess is that they rushed to publish everything they had in line once Betty passed away because the sooner they published them, the better. (If they waited too long, it might raise questions as to whether or not Betty had actually written them.) The business side of publishing may have had a lot to do with the seeming variation between years as well.
Betty Miller
Fascinating-- thanks!
DeleteThank you, Betty Miller. I thought it might be something like that. And welcome! What's your backstory, if I may ask?
DeleteMy backstory? Let's see...I grew up in a small Dutch town in Michigan. I occasionally read Betty Neels in with all the other romances, but I didn't truly love her until I married a man from Maryland and moved away from home. What I love best about Betty Neels is that she makes me homesick. That doesn't sound quite right, but reading Betty can be like going home. Everything feels familiar. I got really crazy about Betty right after 9/11/2001. I was working for the Department of Homeland Security in a highly stressful job and commuting 5 hours each day. My evening train ride home was just long enough to squeeze in a Neels novel. And it was a cozy, comfortable, familiar read. Every time. After a while, I changed government agencies and moved to the middle of West Virginia. Lots less stress. Lots less Neels. At least, until Dad died of lung cancer and Mom followed in less than a year of ovarian cancer. Now a Neels novel is even more likely to make me homesick. It is not just the familiar food (erwtensoep!) but familiar attitudes (although in my family, the family trade is education rather than medicine). My very favorite scenes are the ones where a character says something along the lines of, "We are not Dutch; we are Friesian." I can remember my grandmother saying the exact same thing to me when I came home from a junior high school pep rally for our football team (the "Dutch") with a pin that said, "If you're not Dutch, you're not much." :)
DeleteOh, and the knowledge of Harlequin procedures is because I wrote a romance for them a hundred million years ago before I embarked upon my career as a bureaucrat!
Betty Miller
Betty Miller -
DeleteYou have to tell us the title so that we can all read it!
Betty von Susie
Betty Miller, a Frisian Betty from a small Dutch town in Michigan. Cool. Thank you for sharing your backstory with us.
DeleteStarlit Promise written under the pen name Petra Holland. A Harlequin SuperRomance (#462) from August 1991.
DeleteBetty Miller
Starlit Promise, cover (large image), and synopsis
DeleteGood heavens, how do all of you who have read them all ever keep the meaningless titles straight?
ReplyDeleteI liked ASSOS because of Georgina. Still a BenC in my book!
I liked A Secret Infatuation because of Bosnia.
They sound way too much alike, and are way to irrelevant to activities in the book to keep straight! Why couldn't they all have the heroine's name in the title? Those are easy to keep straight!
I can't keep them all straight! My top ones I know by heart. The others I find by using key words in the search this blog features. For some reason I get little fragments of books floating in my brain, so I'll try a few keyword searches until I can find it. Actually, I was a librarian for thirty years, and keywords searches often saved me. :)
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Army Betty, one would think that it was easy to keep the heroines' names straight. One would think... If you read the first Betty by the Numbers post, published almost ten months ago to the day(!), you will see why that may not be so easy after all. Read Betty van den Betsy's Betty by the Numbers: Names. Statistics. It's all there. Fascinating.
DeleteWow. Betty van den Betsy never ceases to amaze me! Clearly the only way to keep these straight is to shrink down the master BvdB chart to a size that can be laminated and slipped in a wallet....
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ReplyDeleteOkay everyone I finally have my Kindle. Which website has the most free Betty books to download?
ReplyDeleteB von S
Free? Not so sure. I just use Amazon. It's magical when you buy a book because it just pops up in the Kindle! ha I fought against getting one for years, but I was given my mother-in-law's when she passed away in May. I have found that I love it most at night. I am able to read in bed without bugging the PRT with a booklight or lamp.
DeleteAnyway, BvS, I wanted to tell you that I may be in Texas next September. The PRT and I have been vacationing in September/early October to avoid the crowds. But, the national park where we are going next year will probably require our going in August. So.... I may be able to swing a metroplex visit for a TEA PARTY! Wonder if anyone would join us? I've been horribly jealous of the tea partiers.
Betty AnoninTX
Ooooh, I'm always up for a cuppa. There are three or four cute tea rooms around, I would suggest that we go "whole hog" and hit the Adolphus hotel for tea but I have a feeling that any Betty gathering would get out of hand quickly, LOL. We wouldn't want to offend their sense of decorum! Are there any other Betty's within driving distance of the DFW metroplex, do you think?
DeletePossible tearooms: Lavendou, Chocolate Angel, Maudee's Cafe & Tea Room, or, what I think you would really enjoy, The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden on White Rock Lake. They serve a Harvest Tea in the fall, check out the beautiful photos on their website.
B von S
I *love* the Adolphus and know I could talk the PRT into staying several nights there! I just looked at the Arboretum and Botanical Garden site. It looks beautiful. I have never been there. Wish I could go see the pumpkin village! Both menus sound fabulous. You'll have to eat the meat sandwiches! ha I'm a vegetarian. I guess we could figure it out as the time gets closer. We haven't finalized 2013 vacation plans but are starting to work on them. If the trip does bleed over into mid September, we could always do a belated Betty day.
DeleteI'm trying to think. I know we're not the only Texans who have shown up on the spinning globe thingie. I've seen Arkansas and Oklahoma too. Surely someone else might come?
Betty AnoninTX
Surely all the world flocks to DALLAS IN AUGUST!?!?! I once had a local, driving me in from the airport, point out the book depository and Dealey Plaza, and then say, "Well, that's about it." But the next day on my very-early-to-try-to-escape-the-June-heat morning jog, I passed a nice-looking museum and a statue garden depicting a cattle drive, which I thought was wonderful. And I love botanical gardens. So please keep me on your invitation list, especially if you push the party back to September...
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DeleteYea! It'll be September, at least if you want me there. We'll be Crater Lake-ish in August.
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Two of the ladies at my church have been volunteering at the Arboretum for decades, they recommend it highly, but the Adolphus is pretty spiffy too. I tried vegetarianism, I knew I didn't have the time/determination to go strict vegan, and then lapsed into ovo-lacto pescetarianism. I did a good job of keeping up with my calcium but not my iron and became a little anemic. Im sure we could request a vegetarian tea. I must have milk for my tea though, I'm warning you now...
DeleteB von S
B vd B where do you live?
September would be good if you want to go to the Adolphus because
DeleteAfternoon Tea takes a summer break during the months of July and August.
Afternoon Tea will be served Friday through Sunday with reservations beginning at 2:00 pm and ending at 4:00 pm.
A seasonal fruit plate is served to those on restricted diets. (That could possibly present a problem to those on a low-carb diet...)
This is a once in a lifetime deal. Calories, shmalories, carbs, shmarbs. We can go back home and work out later.
DeleteB von S
Let'em eat cake!
Conquering the World Moppet!
DeleteShoot, I don't care where. I just want tea! Ha Just tell me where and when so I can figure out how to get there. The PRT and I usually stay at the W because we're going to a Stars game or a concert.
DeleteI can't do vegan. I like dairy too much. I'm ovo lacto. I can't live without milk. I just don't eat meat.
Betty AnoninTX
Have I ever mentioned that when I joined the members I tried to change the picture while still filling in the "forms" and ended up losing my blog name, instead my email address appeared. I withdrew my membership quick as can be because that seemed the fastest way to fix the problem. Phew! What a blunder.
ReplyDeleteBTW, this has nothing to do with anything, but Fortnum & Mason has Christmas hampers! Oh my stars, I must have one of the musical tins of biscuits. And a tin of Christmas spiced tea. And...
ReplyDeleteBetty AnoninTX