New Voices Winner Announced - Leah Ashton

From Midas Puyblic Relations - Ann Bissell

Secrets and Speed-Dating by Australian author Leah Ashton has won New Voices, the global search for new writing talent from leading romance publisher Mills & Boon.


Launched in September 2010, and hosted at www.romanceisnotdead.com, aspiring authors were asked to submit the first chapter of their Mills & Boon novel for a chance at winning the ultimate prize of seeing their book published by Mills & Boon, an editor for a year and an Apple iPad.

New Voices has placed the publisher in a unique position to engage with their readers online whilst discovering new writing talent. Mills & Boon were the first publisher to publish their entire list as eBooks and to have their own branded Sony eReader. This year they reported 57% growth in sales of eBooks through Tesco.

Mills & Boon's global search for a new author was launched entirely through social media, cementing the publisher's place at the forefront of digital publishing, and the numbers speak for themselves. In the last two months:

> 101,558 hits to http://www.romanceisnotdead.com/

> 27% increase in RomanceHQ twitter followers

> 36% increase in Mills & Boon Facebook fans

> 1.2million page views

> 25,698 unique visitors

> 4,938 registered users making 10,344 comments

An incredible 822 hopeful romance writers entered the 'X-Factor for fiction' who were whittled down to a final ten by the editorial team, allocated author mentors and asked to write their second chapter. The public voted in their hundreds for the final four, who were set the challenge of writing their 'pivotal moment' before facing the judging panel and public vote for one final time.

Winner Leah Ashton was the clear favourite of both the judges and the voting public, and her editor mentor, Meg Lewis, says: "I am absolutely thrilled that Leah has won the New Voices competition. She has been a real pleasure to work with - so enthusiastic and responsive to editorial direction. Leah has a natural voice that's a joy to read and she has real potential."

I hope that Leah will contact me for an interview and to review her debut!  Congratulations Leah.

PROFIT GROWTH FOR HARLEQUIN MILLS AND BOON PARENT

Article from Bookseller.com:

Harlequin Mills and Boon's parent company Torstar has reported a 18.7% growth in profit for the third quarter, with its publishing arm seeing "stable" sales.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) for the group was $50.8m for the quarter ended 30th September, up 18.7% from the quarter last year. Revenue was $352.7m for third quarter, up $9m from the third quarter of last year.

Book publishing operating profit for the quarter was $23m, up $0.1m on the third quarter last year. The company stated that $1.4m of underlying growth offset a negative $1.3m from the impact of foreign exchange. Year to date profit is up $3m year on year.

Book publishing revenue was $117.5m in the third quarter, down $5m from $122,5m in 2009. Revenue for the year to date was $348.1m, down $23m from the same period last year. Excluding the impact of the stronger Canadian dollar book publishing revenues were up $6m year to date.

Torstar ceo and president David Holland said he was "pleased" with the results and called the results at Harlequin "stable". He added: "Throughout the business, we remain focused on free cash flow generation and reduction of net borrowings. In the quarter, net borrowings declined by

$30m to $450m. Year to date, net borrowings have declined by $65m."

Holland said: "At Harlequin, we have experienced very good results year to date but are wary of some indicators of weakness that are emerging in the U.S. market."

What It's Like to Write for Mills and Boon - Natalia Anderson

Natalie Anderson writes for Mills and Boon Modern and Harlequin Presents and recently made it on the USA Today Best Seller List.  She writes "steamy" romances.

Here is her interview on a morning talk show.

A Mills & Boon book club launches in London's Soho

It’s early evening at the Yumchaa tea room in Soho and dotted among tables laden with chocolate brownies, raspberry muffins and marshmallows, are 20-odd women, aged from 28 to 88, who have gathered for the first night of a Mills & Boon book club. Despite the startling lack of men, romance is in the air. Miniature hearts are scattered like confetti on every table and even the loose-leaf teas, which have names like Egyptian Nights, seem to have entered into the sultry spirit of things.

There is, of course, very little tea drinking in Mills & Boon land. Romantic heroes are far too busy running business empires and chasing the heroine to ever touch the stuff, and romantic heroines are far too busy falling in love and having passionate sex to ever put the kettle on. But 31-year-old Trinh Hoang, who co-owns Yumchaa with her Canadian husband, Sean, believes that lovers of romantic fiction will flock to her tea room for the chance to swap notes on their favourite authors. "I wanted to put people together who are as nuts about Mills & Boon as I am," she says. "I’ve been reading them since I was 12."

Article continues, here.

Why the love industry flourishes

Independent.co.uk
Romance inc.: Why the love industry flourishes

Without our insatiable appetite for romantic love, a large part of the mainstream economy would bump and grind to a halt. Luckily, finds Sophie Morris, the downturn hasn't affected the love industry yet

Tuesday, 23 September 2008


Romance comes in many forms. Most of them, in the modern world, involve money. It may be the initial wining and dining; or one of the more extravagant displays of affection required to put a relationship on a more permanent footing; or just one of those periodic injections of the romantic spirit that are so important for keeping such relationships going. There are the various forms of romantic entertainment books, films, music with which we put ideas into one another's heads, or to which we escape when reality doesn't quite match up to our dreams. And then there are the various correctives flowers, chocolates, holidays that we often use to put relationships back on the right track when, say, one of the partners has been working away (or, worse, playing away) for a while.


Not every romantic gesture has to be expensive, but, taken together, it all adds up to an industry that, even in the current climate, is booming.

You can see this in the continuing success of that pillar of the romance industry, Mills & Boon. A hundred years after its first book, the publisher now churns out some 2,000 books a year. You might not know anyone who admits to enjoying Mills & Boon titles, but it is equally unlikely you will find someone in the English-speaking world who hasn't heard of them. Globally, they sell 130 million books every year 10 million of them in the UK. To put that into context, Harry Potter has shifted a mere 400 million in 11 years.

The tone has evolved over the years. In the Twenties when the brand's popularity really took off female readers' romantic aspirations probably went little further than some compliments, maybe a gift or two; a date into which a lover had put some thought. Today's romantics have steamier expectations but Mills & Boon can satisfy them: your 3 will typically buy you a narrative led by a woman's yearning and a man's touch with titles such as Coming Undone ("Waves of pleasure"), The Novice Bride ("Innocent bride, conquering husband") and The Shocking Lord Standon ("Rich, vivid and passionate").

Mills & Boon's marketing director Clare Somerville says that the books reflect how romance has evolved along with society the heroine is now more likely to be a neurosurgeon than a housewife, and descriptive sex scenes are commonplace in some of the Mills & Boon sub genres; in fact, they lead the plot as long as the protagonists are romantically interested in one another. "Part of the enjoyment for our readers is they know to a certain degree that certain conventions are going to be followed," she says. "There is a framework and a premise, which is that a couple are going to meet, there are going to be quite a lot of obstacles on the way to them achieving happiness, but ultimately the ending is going to be uplifting, and leave you with a positive feeling".

Literary purists will always have reservations about the books as literature with their repetitive plots, two-dimensional characters and gender stereotyping but as a product they are hard to fault, with an annual UK turnover of around 20m. Their example, believes Somerville, has informed more inventive romantic reads. "We're definitely the precursor to modern chick lit such as Bridget Jones, but we're also the child of Jane Austen and the Brontës."

And if Somerville sounds less worried than many about the hard economic times ahead, perhaps that's not surprising: it was during the Depression of the Twenties and Thirties that the imprint really took off. "People wanted to escape the hardship of the depression and general strikes," she explains. "What women wanted, and what we could make money out of, was light fiction. They concentrated on ramping up the light fiction of the time, and the growth of the lending libraries in the Thirties was a great conduit for romantic fiction."

But it's not just publishers who can profit from the earning power of romance. The outlook also looks rosy for the British greeting card industry, whose incredible success in recent years suggests that most of us still struggle with putting our romantic thoughts into our own words. In 2006 alone, 2.87 billion cards were sold in the UK with a combined value of 1.306bn. That's 48 cards per person.

"We're huge fans of slushy cards in the UK," explains Sharon Little, general manager of the Greeting Card Association. "We wonder whether it is because people are still quite stiff upper lip when it comes to face-to-face meetings, and need some medium to convey their feelings".

No other country has quite such an embedded culture of sending and receiving cards. Little claims the UK is 10 years ahead of anywhere else in terms of design, and there are around 800 card publishers operating around the country. It is a vital industry as far as the economy goes: one in six retailers stocks cards, and hot spots include Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire, where cards have stepped into the shoes of heavy manufacturing as major employers.

Chocolates are another tried and tested way of saying "I love you", and, once again, despite the credit crunch sales are booming. The seasonal and boxed chocolate market is now worth 1.246bn, a significant increased from 1.180bn in 2006, when a heavy downturn in the market was predicted.

Times have moved on since the days when a lady was happy with a stealthily delivered box of Milk Tray. Posh chocs are where it's at, and the provenance of the cocoa is all important. Luxury food halls and bespoke chocolatiers such as Godiva and Green & Blacks are gaining ground and squeezing businesses such as Thorntons, long the chocolate king of the high street. The big food producers have not been slow to notice the trend towards luxury which suggests that chocolates are now being bought for special occasions, no doubt many of them romantic and three years ago Cadbury Schweppes bought Green & Blacks for 20m.

Flowers top even chocolate in terms of revenue. The UK trade in cheap bunches of tulips and costly hand-arranged bouquets is worth 2.2bn annually. On Valentine's Day, of course, most of that trade is done in red roses, a flower associated with love, passion and romance.

A more costly way to express feelings for a loved one is to buy a piece of jewellery. The market is worth around 2.5bn, an 11 per cent increase over five years, and the most successful jewellers are those offering high quality pieces in distinctive designs. "Upmarket jewellery is often bought for sentimental reasons," says Mintel's senior fashion analyst Katrin Magnussen. "This means that the market is likely to hold its own in these more challenging times." Platinum the engagement and wedding band of choice for young women is the real mover. Sales are worth 75m and have grown 36 per cent since 2003.

There are those who say that flowers and chocolates are no indication of how a person feels for another, but when it comes to romantic gestures the figures show we are fairly conformist in our tastes. That said, buying gifts as an expression of romance is so deeply engraved on our nation's psyche, it looks as if the practice might withstand even the toughest of economic shocks. St Valentine must be turning in his grave wishing he had trademarked his name.

London's Pink Ribbon Run - Breast Cancer & Mills and Boon

FROM AUTHOR JANE PORTER'S BLOG

For my Harlequin readers around the world, or those who are passionate supporters of breast cancer research as I am, I thought you might enjoy hearing that the Harlequin Mills & Boon editors and staff in London are participating in a 5k run supporting Breast Cancer. The goal is to have one hundred staff members, friends and family join in the run on September 7th. Why 100? Because it’s Mills & Boons’ 100th birthday this year and just makes the event more special.

A number of the Harlequin Romance and Presents authors have made donations to the event and I just made a donation, too. As most of you know my amazing former mother-in-law, Jackie Gaskins, fought breast cancer successfully twice before cancer claimed her life 18 months ago. Mrs. Perfect was dedicated to Jackie and I even named the character Jackie in Flirting with Forty after her. Jackie Gaskins was an incredibly vivacious woman–sunny, loving, optimistic up until the end. Best of all, she was the ultimate grandmother, the kind that baked cookies for the boys, played cards for hours, loved board games and movies and just sitting around talking. My boys can’t talk about her without tearing up. They don’t like me to mention her because it hurts too much. I don’t blame them. It does hurt too much.

Let’s fund more research for breast cancer. Let’s find that cure, too. I don’t want any more children to grow up with out a mom, grandchildren without a mother, or husbands and family without a wive or daughter or sister.

If any of you would like to make a donation to support the Mills & Boon editorial team, visit the online donation page set up: http://www.justgiving.com/millsandboon. The page accepts credit card donations so you can donate from anywhere in the world, or better yet, if you happen to be in, or around, London on the 7th, why don’t you run? If you do, let me know and I’ll support you, too! Jane

Consuming Passion - 100 years of Mills and Boon

CONSUMING PASSION 100 Years of Mills and Boon
UK / BBC Four / 1x90 minute episode / 2008 Writer: Emma Frost / Producers: Ben Evans, Abi Bach / Executive Producer: John Yorke / Director: Dan Zeff Coming soon is this drama Consuming Passion which is actually a trilogy of stories about three very different women involved with Romance

Publishers du jour Mills and Boon down the ages. In 1908 Charles Boon and his business partner Gerald Mills start up their publishing company and decide to take a chance on what is considered a very low brow area of the readership world, the romance novel. Meanwhile Charles' wife Mary is determined to stake a place for herself as a modern woman. Fast forward to the 1970's when Janet Bottomley, who spends most of her time caring for her elderly mother, falls for the handsome doctor who is going to operate on her mother. Finally the story is brought up to date with university lecturer Kirstie who, whilst busy teaching her students about M&B's place in the literary canon ends up in an explosive affair with a handsome stranger. Currently filming in and around London. castJODIE WHITTAKER as Mary BoonDANIEL MAYS as Charles BoonPATRICK KENNEDY as Gerald MillsOLIVIA COLEMAN as Janet BottomleyPATRICK BALADIOT FAGBENIE