Nancy Drew Blog Party Day 10 - Nancy Drew Consulting - Lost Files

Nancy Drew Consulting:
The Lost Files of Nancy Drew

First--what is a Nancy Drew Consultant? I get asked that a lot when I say that's something that I do. I mean, who grows up wanting to be a Nancy Drew consultant when they choose a career? I certainly didn't! And though it's not my career per se, it's certainly something that over the last few years has taken up quite a bit of my time. And it's not very often a paying job either...

I'm often asked by companies producing products or by the publishers to ofter advice, research items, provide scans and images of books and collectibles, and feedback. Fact checking is also something I like to do to help try and avoid misinformation that exists in print. Mostly I receive samples for my work.

When the Nancy Drew movie from Warner Brothers was set to be released in 2007, some of the licensees and publishers for Nancy Drew came out with some products in timing with the publicity and fanfare the movie would produce.

One such product was the Lost Files of Nancy Drew. I was first contacted about this book by Grosset & Dunlap when they were conceptualizing it. Unfortunately they didn't need me to design it :) They already had a UK book packager working on it--Brainwaves Limited. But they wanted me to check the history section of the book over for any errors. That section lies in the back of the book and focuses mostly on Edward Stratemeyer, Mildred Wirt Benson, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. I received a copy of the book and a credit in the Bibliography section where my website is listed.

Because mostly new content was being written, the packager in the UK didn't need my help in any of the blurbs for the books featured.

The book is over sized with soft covers and inside pages that have pull tabs, pop ups and other interesting layouts. It's supposed to be like a top secret interactive journal that Nancy Drew kept on some of her famous cases.

Books featured are The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, The Clue in the Diary, The Clue of the Broken Locket, The Secret in the Old Attic, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, The Mystery at the Ski Jump, The Scarlet Slipper Mystery, The Mystery of the 99 Steps, The Invisible Intruder, The Strange Message in the Parchment, and The Thirteenth Pearl.

There's also a fashion section in the back of Nancy Drew through the decades--thought it doesn't feature images of Nancy, and instead features models wearing clothes from that decade. In the very back there's an envelope of postcards featuring Nancy Drew covers.

It's probably one of the neater items that a publisher has put together to commemorate Nancy Drew!

The covers they featured were the original ones--mostly the Tandy art for the earlier volumes but some of them like Lilac Inn and Broken Locket also used some things from the revised texts that were not in the original versions. I didn't get to proofread the book journal pages to catch errors like that unfortunately.

You can still find this book at online bookstores and at eBay pretty often if you haven't picked up a copy. I bought a second copy so I could play with it more and open the postcard envelope and have kept the other one in unused condition.

Jenn:)