Editing Dime novel (section)

=== Changing formats ===
In 1873, the house of Beadle & Adams introduced a new ten-cent format, {{convert|9|x|13.25|in|mm}}, with only 32 pages and a black-and-white illustration on the cover, under the title ''New and Old Friends''. It was not a success, but the format was so much cheaper to produce that they tried again in 1877 with ''The Fireside Library'' and ''Frank Starr's New York Library''. The first reprinted English love stories, the second contained hardier material, but both titles caught on. Publishers were no less eager to follow a new trend then than now. Soon the newsstands were flooded by ten-cent weekly "libraries". These publications also varied in size, from as small as 7 x 10&nbsp;inches (''The Boy's Star Library'' is an example) to 8.5 x 12 (''New York Detective Library''). The ''Old Cap Collier Library'' was issued in both sizes and also in booklet form. Each issue tended to feature a single story, unlike the story papers, and many of them were devoted to a single character. Frontier stories, evolving into westerns, were still popular, but the new vogue tended to urban crime stories. One of the most successful titles, [[Frank Tousey]]'s ''New York Detective Library'' eventually came to alternate stories of the James Gang with stories of Old King Brady, detective, and (in a rare occurrence in the dime novel) several stories which featured both, with Old King Brady doggedly on the trail of the vicious gang.<ref group=notes>Nick Carter was also a character in stories featuring other detectives, such as Old Broadbrim, much as superheroes crossover in today's comic books.</ref>

The competition was fierce, and publishers were always looking for an edge. Once again, color came into play when Frank Tousey introduced a weekly with brightly colored covers in 1896. Street & Smith countered by issuing a weekly in a smaller format with muted colors. Such titles as ''New Nick Carter Weekly'' (continuing the original black-and-white ''Nick Carter Library''), ''Tip-Top Weekly'' (introducing [[Frank Merriwell]]) and others were 7 x 10 inches with thirty-two pages of text, but the 8.5 x 11 Tousey format carried the day, and Street & Smith soon followed suit. The price was also dropped to five cents, making the magazines more accessible to children. This would be the last major permutation of the product before it evolved into pulp magazines. Ironically, for many years it has been the nickel weeklies that most people refer to when using the term ''dime novel''.

[[File:Secret Service COLOR.jpg|thumb|right|upright|One of the most popular color-covered nickel weeklies, ''Secret Service'', no. 225, May 15, 1903]]

The nickel weeklies were popular, and their numbers grew quickly. Frank Tousey and Street & Smith dominated the field. Tousey had his "big six": ''Work and Win'' (featuring Fred Fearnot, a serious rival to the soon-to-be-popular Frank Merriwell), ''Secret Service'', ''Pluck and Luck'', ''Wild West Weekly'', ''[[Fame and Fortune Weekly]]'', and ''The Liberty Boys of '76'', each of which issued over a thousand copies weekly.<ref group=notes>Several shorter runs are among the most collectible today: ''Frank Reade Weekly'' (the color-cover followup to the ''Frank Reade Library'') and ''The James Boys''.</ref> Street & Smith had ''New Nick Carter Weekly'', ''Tip Top Weekly'', ''Buffalo Bill Stories'', ''Jesse James Stories'', ''Brave & Bold Weekly'' and many others. The Tousey stories were generally the more lurid and sensational of the two.

Perhaps the most confusing of the various formats lumped together under the term ''dime novel'' are the so-called "thick-book" series, most of which were published by Street & Smith, J. S. Ogilvie and Arthur Westbrook. These books were published in series, contained roughly 150 to 200 pages, and were {{convert|4.75|x|7|in|mm}}, often with color covers on a higher-grade stock. They reprinted multiple stories from the five- and ten-cent weeklies, often slightly rewritten to tie them together.

[[File:AmDetSeries no. 21.jpg|thumb|left|upright|An example of a "thick book" series, ''American Detective Series'', no. 21, Arthur Westbrook Co.]]

All dime-novel publishers were canny about reusing and refashioning material, but Street & Smith excelled at it. They developed the practice of publishing four consecutive, related tales of, for example, Nick Carter, in the weekly magazine, then combining the four stories into one edition of the related thick-book series, in this instance, the ''New Magnet Library''.<ref group=notes>In addition, Street & Smith bought the rights to other detective stories and had them strung together and rewritten into Nick Carter stories, allowing the ''New Magnet Library'' to run for over 1,000 issues.</ref> The Frank Merriwell stories appeared in the ''Medal, New Medal'' and ''Merriwell'' libraries, Buffalo Bill in the ''Buffalo Bill Library'' and ''Far West Library'', and so on. The thick books were still in print as late as the 1930s but carry the copyright date of the original story, often as early as the late nineteenth century, leading some dealers and new collectors today to erroneously assume they have original dime novels when the books are only distantly related.