As if to disprove their most fundamental tenet last week Harlequin Mills & Boon left one billionaire owner for another, as News Corporation bought the publisher from Torstar in a deal worth $415 million. The world's foremost purveyor of romance fiction will now operate as a division of HarperCollins. This news has been met with numerous emotional reactions ranging from the mildly concerned to the entirely disinterested. Corporate take-overs and corporate mergers are popular at present in the publishing industry, and News Corp. has been eager to expand its portfolio of companies, having already toyed with amalgamating with the likes of Hachette, Pan Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. For an idealistic money-maker such as Harlequin, Torstar was no longer the tycoon to keep them in finery. The furtive glances and pebbled nipples of Rupert Murdoch proved too good to turn down. Whereas Torstar has lost the brightness in it eyes and a huge amount of money in recent times, News Corp. is powerful, wealthy, attractive and knows what it is doing when it comes to merging.
There are certain obstacles, however, standing in the way of a happy coupling. News Corp. has been known to be controlling, emotionally distant and megalomaniacal, even going so far as to listen to mobile phone messages without permission. Might it be that they love too much? Whatever, say Mills & Boon, perhaps a little petulantly, those things that took place in the past took place in the past and should not been considered relevant to predicting the future. Critics don't know News Corp. like Harlequin knows News Corp.. They have changed and this time will be different. Through the gentle embrace of Mills & Boon and their tales of true love, innocence and NASCAR News Corporation will soon open their hearts as easily as they open their wallets.
For Murdoch's tyrannical empire, who hope to soon announce the ownership of everything, their motivation for the take-over is obvious. Mills & Boon will become a key piece of their vertical and horizontal strategy. As Forbes Magazine simply explains, HarperCollins wishes to, 'develop vertical niches within publishing to give it economies of scale when marketing to audiences.' Naturally, Harlequin is no longer as young and flexible as they once were, but they remain an established name in the genre, and are hugely successful overseas, whereas HarperCollins are not. Despite this, Mills & Boon have been struggling financially, in the relative terms of a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Revenues have fallen steadily over the past four years, down almost $100million since 2009. Between 2007 and 2013, mass market print sales declined from $1.1 billion to $373.1 million. In 2013, their CEO, Craig Swinwood, blamed lower sales on book pricing and self-publishing. The electronic market, which Harlequin initially embraced, has negatively affected business. 'Because of aggressive discounting at large online retailers many hardcover titles are being sold at similar or sometimes lower prices than paperbacks.'
Meanwhile, self-publishing is big business. 'In 2013, there were 99 self-published ebook best-sellers.' To put this potentially meaningless sentence into context, 'Hachette, one of the largest publishers in the world, led all publishers with 258; Harlequin was 11th on the list with 21.' Considering many of Hachette's successes were not traditional romances, but from a wide-range of genres, this statistic is so misleading it was perhaps not worth mentioning. Still, the average price of an e-book will soon level out, offering a more dependable insight into future profits. Fortunately for Mills & Boon their new bosses, HarperCollins, know a thing or two about price-fixing e-books. Self-publishing offers numerous advantages to the self-publisher. An author has creative control, and only has to deal with themselves, albeit wearing a different hat. The share of the royalties is greater, seventy per cent compared to fifteen to twenty-five per cent that is traditional for Harlequin writers. Finally and perhaps best, there is no chance of receiving a rejection letter from the company who have recently released books entitled From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride, Cowboy Under the Mistletoe and The Last Good Knight.
In response to an increase in self-publishing, Mills & Boon have attempted to offer more compelling reasons for authors to choose a publishing house. They have introduced Harlequin’s Author Network, 'a dashboard where authors can check sales, get market intelligence and have all their questions answered by a concierge service.' Still, the appeal of self-publishing is strong. Anyone able to cover the cost can publish their own twist on Fifty Shades of Grey, but for the customer there is no difference between those authors choosing artistic freedom and those who would be read any other way. The stamp of Mills & Boon approval guarantees a uniformly indistinguishable level of expectation, but perhaps readers are drawn to the thrill of the unknown found within the abyss of the internet. For News Corp. the prestige of the company name was considered worth the investment. For the money spent, Mills & Boon is a sound purchase. Romance Fiction is a lucrative market, and HarperCollins has placed itself at its centre in a single move.
As for the future, will they seek to make adjustments to the product? Is this positive news for aspiring authors and loyal readers? 'From a reader’s standpoint, it concerns me because Harlequin has always been innovative and tried to bring diverse story lines,' says Jane Litte, founder of Dear Reader. In particular Little singles out Harlequin's ethnic imprints, but their appeal to foreign markets is what made them so appealing to News Corporation. Craig Swinwood attempted to reassure readers in the aftermath of the deal's announcement. 'The Harlequin name and rich heritage will be preserved independently, with the aim to leverage capabilities to bring the book-reading public more choices.' Litte recognises that it is too soon to tell what this will mean for loyal readers, beyond knowing that now there will be a new more reason for feeling dirty and guilty for purchasing a romance novel.
There are certain obstacles, however, standing in the way of a happy coupling. News Corp. has been known to be controlling, emotionally distant and megalomaniacal, even going so far as to listen to mobile phone messages without permission. Might it be that they love too much? Whatever, say Mills & Boon, perhaps a little petulantly, those things that took place in the past took place in the past and should not been considered relevant to predicting the future. Critics don't know News Corp. like Harlequin knows News Corp.. They have changed and this time will be different. Through the gentle embrace of Mills & Boon and their tales of true love, innocence and NASCAR News Corporation will soon open their hearts as easily as they open their wallets.
For Murdoch's tyrannical empire, who hope to soon announce the ownership of everything, their motivation for the take-over is obvious. Mills & Boon will become a key piece of their vertical and horizontal strategy. As Forbes Magazine simply explains, HarperCollins wishes to, 'develop vertical niches within publishing to give it economies of scale when marketing to audiences.' Naturally, Harlequin is no longer as young and flexible as they once were, but they remain an established name in the genre, and are hugely successful overseas, whereas HarperCollins are not. Despite this, Mills & Boon have been struggling financially, in the relative terms of a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Revenues have fallen steadily over the past four years, down almost $100million since 2009. Between 2007 and 2013, mass market print sales declined from $1.1 billion to $373.1 million. In 2013, their CEO, Craig Swinwood, blamed lower sales on book pricing and self-publishing. The electronic market, which Harlequin initially embraced, has negatively affected business. 'Because of aggressive discounting at large online retailers many hardcover titles are being sold at similar or sometimes lower prices than paperbacks.'
Meanwhile, self-publishing is big business. 'In 2013, there were 99 self-published ebook best-sellers.' To put this potentially meaningless sentence into context, 'Hachette, one of the largest publishers in the world, led all publishers with 258; Harlequin was 11th on the list with 21.' Considering many of Hachette's successes were not traditional romances, but from a wide-range of genres, this statistic is so misleading it was perhaps not worth mentioning. Still, the average price of an e-book will soon level out, offering a more dependable insight into future profits. Fortunately for Mills & Boon their new bosses, HarperCollins, know a thing or two about price-fixing e-books. Self-publishing offers numerous advantages to the self-publisher. An author has creative control, and only has to deal with themselves, albeit wearing a different hat. The share of the royalties is greater, seventy per cent compared to fifteen to twenty-five per cent that is traditional for Harlequin writers. Finally and perhaps best, there is no chance of receiving a rejection letter from the company who have recently released books entitled From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride, Cowboy Under the Mistletoe and The Last Good Knight.
In response to an increase in self-publishing, Mills & Boon have attempted to offer more compelling reasons for authors to choose a publishing house. They have introduced Harlequin’s Author Network, 'a dashboard where authors can check sales, get market intelligence and have all their questions answered by a concierge service.' Still, the appeal of self-publishing is strong. Anyone able to cover the cost can publish their own twist on Fifty Shades of Grey, but for the customer there is no difference between those authors choosing artistic freedom and those who would be read any other way. The stamp of Mills & Boon approval guarantees a uniformly indistinguishable level of expectation, but perhaps readers are drawn to the thrill of the unknown found within the abyss of the internet. For News Corp. the prestige of the company name was considered worth the investment. For the money spent, Mills & Boon is a sound purchase. Romance Fiction is a lucrative market, and HarperCollins has placed itself at its centre in a single move.
As for the future, will they seek to make adjustments to the product? Is this positive news for aspiring authors and loyal readers? 'From a reader’s standpoint, it concerns me because Harlequin has always been innovative and tried to bring diverse story lines,' says Jane Litte, founder of Dear Reader. In particular Little singles out Harlequin's ethnic imprints, but their appeal to foreign markets is what made them so appealing to News Corporation. Craig Swinwood attempted to reassure readers in the aftermath of the deal's announcement. 'The Harlequin name and rich heritage will be preserved independently, with the aim to leverage capabilities to bring the book-reading public more choices.' Litte recognises that it is too soon to tell what this will mean for loyal readers, beyond knowing that now there will be a new more reason for feeling dirty and guilty for purchasing a romance novel.
