This question is more interesting than you might realize. The books list the author as "Victor Appleton" ("Victor Appleton II" for the Tom Swift Jr. series). However, Victor Appleton is not a real person. That name is a pseudonym. Tom Swift was the invention of Edward Stratemeyer, a writer from New Jersey who also invented Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and many other children's series characters. Edward Stratemeyer ran something he called the "Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate."

While "Syndicate" sounds ominous to those of us familiar with gangster movies of the 1940s, the term comes from the newspaper industry which hired writers to write stories under fake names, or pseudonyms. The writers would be paid a flat fee for writing and the syndicate would own the work, taking all the risk to see if it can be successful.

Edward Stratemeyer was enormously successful with this model. In addition to a large number of stories which he wrote personally (160), he also invented series characters and created outlines for book plots. These outlines would be sent out to a ghostwriter who would write the story based on Stratemeyer's guidance. Stratemeyer would then edit the story, handle all dealings with the publisher, and work on the marketing of the story or series. Some stories failed; others did very well.

One series which did very well was Tom Swift. That is why there have been a total of five incarnations of this character, taking it through the time when Edward Stratemeyer was alive, to when his daughters took over the syndicate and finally to when the current owners of the Syndicate properties, Simon & Schuster, continued it. There is talk of a Tom Swift movie currently under production. If we are lucky, Tom Swift might be influencing people to find science and invention cool for another 100 years.