|
|
 |
|
| |
|
|  |
Nights in white satin: 100 years old but Mills & Boon readership base fails to age.
A thread that binds PG Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer and Hugh Walpole is Mills & Boon, the fiction publisher that started in London in 1908. A century later, Harlequin Mills & Boon remains the market leader in the field of romantic fiction publishing. What does it take to be a member of the M&B family? A vivid imagination and aspiration.
Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones novels, was rejected for not being “good enough” but that didn’t reduce M&B’s market share. M&B has, according to The Independent, in recent years “shifted its focus from virginal heroines and brooding, saturnine heroes to include subjects such as crime and the paranormal”. Let’s meet a few M&B authors…
Liz Fielding
She started writing when her children were small and her engineer husband, John, was working abroad. She met him while working in Africa and had travelled the world together before settling down to raise her family. Her first romance, An Image of You, was set in Kenya.
“I’ve written more than fifty books for Mills & Boon over the past seventeen years and in that period I’ve seen a huge expansion in markets and sales. There are many more books available now with readers able to choose not just from the traditional ‘Romance’ series for which I write, but those involving home and family, history, adventure, crime and even the supernatural. Mills & Boon is a vibrant, evolving brand that continues to grow a worldwide audience and in its centenary year has been featured widely, and positively, in the quality press in the UK,” she says.
“Mills & Boon publish books for an international audience of all ages and their authors have, throughout the past century, responded to the changes in the lives of women. It is only natural that sexual freedom for women has been reflected in some of new series, providing a wide choice to cater to all reading tastes, just as it is in other publishing houses. Each series is carefully branded and promoted to reflect content, however, so no one need fear that they will accidentally buy a book that will offend them. The market, in the end, will determine whether or not a series will flourish as the “Romance” series has done from the very beginning.”
According to her romance is character, rather than plot, driven, so although a theme, or a scene may be in her mind while embarking on a new book, nothing happens until she has a heroine that her readers can relate to, a hero with whom she would fall a little in love.
“Occasionally ~ when I’m very lucky ~ a minor character in one book will leap off the page demanding her own story, as happened in my award-winning book, The Marriage Miracle, and again, more recently, in Wedded In A Whirlwind, in which the emotionally fragile heroine is forced to put her entire trust in a man she doesn’t know. The themes for both books became forgiveness, but the characters, with all their faults, weaknesses, strengths and charms, came first. Similarly, with a themed series, such as Desert Brides, for which I wrote The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride, it was the heroine, her ambitions, her need to protect her family, who brought the story to life, and the sheikh, whose arrival provided the conflict, both internal and external, between family and desire.”
Fielding has piles of Mills & Boon which “I turn to for a relaxing, switch-off hour or two”. “The first book I read was written by Penny Jordan. It was a ‘sheikh’ romance and I immediately wanted to write something as captivating, heart-rending, thrilling.”
Jennie Adams
She began her Harlequin career in 2005 and her first release ~ The Boss’s Convenient Bride ~ was on the Waldenbooks Bestseller list. She is a long time member of Romance Writers of Australia, and credits her membership of its Isolated Writers Scheme, online e-mail group and attendance of its annual conferences as a major impacting factor in her rise to success as one of Australia’s popular Harlequin Romance authors.
“The beauty of Mills and Boon books is that they continue to develop and change in line with societal changes. I’m writing in a perfect era where I can explore any topic that is current and meaningful to me, and is hopefully for that reason, also broadly appealing to readers around the globe.”
She writes in the M&B ‘Romance’ category. “In this category, the development of the relationship between the hero and heroine and their emotional journey are key story components. As a reader, I read across a range of Mills and Boon categories and enjoy each of them for their unique appeal. Mills and Boon offers a range of stories to suit every reader ~ something for everyone... I am inspired by the sight of a child asleep in his father’s arms, by a snatch of conversation overheard in a coffee shop. Sometimes a heroine will drop fully formed into my thoughts and I know I have to write her. One of my core themes is family. I don’t consciously think about writing this, but it comes out in all of my books in one way or another.”
The first M&B she remembers reading was a Betty Neels Medical Romance. “I loved her silent, assertive hero who could say so much ‘with a look’ and her spunky, determined heroine.”
“My writing schedule keeps me busy. Currently I am working on revisions on my first M&B novella, which will be released in a three-in-one volume titled Australian Billionaires, I’m planning my next full length Romance story, and am in discussions with my editor about writing projects for 2009. My recent release ~ The Boss’s Unconventional Assistant ~ is a Romantic Times award nominee and my book Nine To Five Bride will be released soon as the lead book in a trilogy of stories in a series titled Blind Date Brides that explores the modern theme of women finding romance on dating websites.”
Lynn Raye Harris
She is a new author with Mills & Boon and her first book, Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge, will not be available until August 2009.
“But, as you know, M&B is holding the Passions contest to search for Indian authors to write for Mills & Boon Modern (called Harlequin Presents in the United States). I am the winner of the first contest M&B held in early 2008, and I have since had my novel picked up for publication. One lucky writer will get an editor for a year (among other cool things) who will guide him or her in the completion of a novel suitable for publication. This truly is the opportunity of a lifetime for a writer who aspires to write romance novels! As for your question about how the brand has changed over the years, I can answer as a reader only: when I first picked up a Mills & Boon Modern romance in the 1970s, the characters fit into very traditional cultural roles. Now, I believe the line is more open to independent heroines who have careers and lives that don’t require a man to complete it. But they find love with that one special man when they aren’t necessarily looking for it, and this makes the story so emotional and passionate. I love to read these stories, and I am now very happy to be writing them as well.”
As a new author, she is not afraid of getting lost in the crowd. “Mills & Boon is simply amazing in how they treat their authors, and in how they package the novels each month. My book will appear with several others, yes, and some of the authors will be those already beloved by readers whereas I will be brand new. But I think my book will speak for itself, and a reader who enjoys reading M&B Modern will enjoy my story as well. And hopefully he or she will look for my next book! “
“I’m working on my second novel for M&B now, and it came to me first as an idea: what would happen if a prince had a baby and didn’t know it? And then I expanded it from there, mostly by asking myself questions and thinking about how emotional a situation that would be for the characters. My first novel came from an idea of revenge: what if a powerful man believed that the woman he’d once loved tried to ruin him? To what lengths would he go to get revenge? I get ideas from news stories, from television, from reading ~ inspiration comes from so many places, but it’s the way I put it together that makes it into a story. I should also say that I think a writer needs to be very conversant with the line she wants to write for. Unless I was a fan of Modern, I couldn’t write them. You can’t pick up a novel or two, read them, and then write the kind of story that fulfills the promise of the line. You need to love them first.”
| | |
|
|
 |
|
|
