Happy Birthday Harlequin

As you'll know, 2008 was a special year for Mills & Boon with special publications, celebrations ons, exhibitions throughout their centenary year. This year it's Harlequin's turn as the company marks their diamond anniversary! And they plan to celebrate in style with publishing initiatives and exciting events planned throughout the year.

There's a special site that gives details of all the celebrations that are coming up, the lines that will be in the spotlight in each month - and right now you can download your choice of 16 books - for free! That's a total value of $60. This site launches today and you can find more details here at Harlequin Celebrates

In February, the North American spotlight is on Harlequin Romance. There is a competition for readers to win a diamond necklace. Visit the website and take a look at http://www.diamondbridesproposals.com/ for more details.

The Presents line has its turn in July and the latest continuity, the Royal House of Karedes, will be on sale in July both at home and abroad as part of Harlequin’s sparkling celebration. July of course is also the month for the Romance Writers Of America's National Conference so that event will be special for those of us attending.

Here in the UK, Mills & Boon is now launching its rugby-themed International Billionaires mini-series in Modern, developed in partnership with England’s Rugby Football Union. The RFU feels the link with romance is ‘a fantastic way to encourage more women and their families to get involved with the game.’ For us, it’s a wonderful opportunity to sample our editorial and M&B will be handing out 20,000 sample chapters at the England v Italy Six Nations game at Twickenham in February.

Watch out for more events and celebrations throughout the year.

A Question of Covers

On Wednesday, the UK newspaper The Guardian ran this article:

Ad agency St Luke's is set to redesign Mills & Boon covers. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian
Romantic fiction publisher Mills & Boon is planning its first new advertising campaign in six years to "ignite passion" in younger readers.
The publisher, which celebrated its 100th birthday this year, has appointed ad agency St Luke's to develop a new campaign for its novels.
St Luke's, which won a pitch for the account against two other unnamed agencies, will launch the campaign next summer, and will also redesign the covers of Mills & Boon's books.
Mills & Boon said the aim of the ad campaign is to "ignite a passion for the brand among a new target audience of younger readers while continuing to fuel love and loyalty among its very sizeable fanbase".
The company said that more than 7 million Mills & Boon books are sold in the UK each year.
"It is not every day that you get to work with a client listed in the Oxford English Dictionary," said the St Luke's business development director, Liz Little.

Now this intrigued me. In the almost 25 years I've been writing for Mills & Boon, I, and my books, have been through heavens knows how many changes in the design of the covers. There were the original covers with different coloured bands at the top. (The bands were supposed to be dark or pastel depending on the sensuality of the covers, but in my own books it seemed more that they picked up colours in the actual cover art work)

Then there were the 'half a heart'covers. Covers where the different halves of a heart, one facing right, one facing left, were meant to be displayed so that on the shelves they made up one whole heart. They never were displayed that way - at least, I never saw them.

Then the lines were split into Romance and - then it was Mills & Boon Presents - and there was the solid band of blue. The band of blue became a blue swirl with - oh dear - photographs that so often made the heroes look about 3 years old and often very gay. The heroines were too frequently emaciated too.

The photographs disappeared. We went back to art work. But it was still a matter of luck if you got a good cover or not. You could describe your hero and heroine till you were blu in the face, send in magazine pictures that were meant to show what your characters looked like. Sometimes it seemed that the artwork department listened - sometimes . . . NOT! I once foolishly said that my hero was an actor, a film star - Robert Redford type.

What I got was this. RR's older, fatter, less handsome cousin maybe - but Redford himself??

I'm intrigued by this Guardian article in two ways.

One is that the covers tend to be matters of fashion. And luck. Sometimes you get a great one. Other times you get ones that have you wincing and crying 'No!'

Who could forget the glory of 'The Blob' that was the cover of Desert Affair - though you had to see it in the pink hardback library version to see it in it's true horror.

And my other point is that 'younger readers' bit. How young? I've met readers of romances who range in age from 16 to 86 . And none of them buys the book solely because of the cover.

If we design covers for younger readers do we need to use - say Zac Efron - as a cover model as opposed to H-I-A-T?

Well, Zac's pretty but he's not my Greek Billionaire or my hard-bitten, brooding Santos Cordero in my next book.

And what do you want on a cover? The hero and heroine? A clinch? Flowers? Hearts and flowers? It seems to me that you can't please all of the people all of the time - and unless we go down the Harry Potter route, with one cover for the adult version and one for the younger market, we will struggle to create a cover image that appeals to everyone.

So what do you think? Are you a 'younger reader'? Do you think romance appeals to you and your age group? Is it anything to do with the covers that appeals/puts you off? Would a change in covers make you want to pick up a book or would one of those The Amnesiac Greek Billionaire's Secret Mistress's Secret Baby titles make you put it straight back down again?

And what does everyone think? No matter what your age or how long you've been reading romance. Do you buy because of the appeal of a cover image? Or is it the title (is it really??) or the author's name . . .

I'm interested - and I'm pretty sure St Luke's ad agency is too.

Reading - not!

I'm deep in revisions for my latest book. They're the sort of revisions where it seemed simple to combine my own vision of the story with the comments my editor made.

But then those revisions often mean that touch one scene and the knock on effect from that changes the next scene and the knock on effect from that . . .

So I'm busy - and concentrating . And when I'm concentrating like this, I don't read. It distracts my focus and the focus needs to be on the two characters I'm working with.

But while I'm focusing I'm also aware of the fact that this week my newest Presents title - Bedded By The Greek Billionaire is published. And I want to celebrate that. So, as I mentioned, I'm going to run a small celebratory contest to share the excitement of this new release with you. And of course, as I've said I'm also celebrating that this book in a November Romantic Times Top Pick!

As you know, I was in Guildford lately where everyone who was at the workshop was given a Mills & Boon goody bag, kindly donated by Harlequin Mills & Boon as part of their 100th birthday celebrations. I still have one or two of the goodies left over - so I'm making up two packages of special M&B gifts for each winner of this contest to celebrate my new book.

What do you have to do?

Well I may not be reading but that doesn't mean that you're not. And if you let me know what you're reading then I might want to add it to my own TBR for when I have this book tweaked and back on my editor's desk. So all you have to do to enter this contest is to post a comment telling me what you're reading right now and what you think of it. And in a couple of days time I'll get Sid to pick out the winners.

And I'll put a signed copy of my own Centenary Special novella The Duke's Secret Wife into the goody bag as well.

PS Just to remind you - you can enter my contests from anywhere in the world. I don't restrict entries ot the UK, or USA - if I can post a prize to you, you can enter!

So anyone from all of the 143 countries listed on my Neo Counter can have a go at winning.

Guildford Book Festival Part 2

Girls' Night Part I

Hosted by Jane Wenham-Jones
Fiction
2008-10-17 19:00
Electric Theatre
Venue Details: There’s nothing wrong with a happy ending!

A celebration of Mills & Boon. In the Mills & Boon centenary year the panel celebrate the enduring popularity of these classic romances.

Katie Fforde, a ‘failed’ Mills & Boon writer who went on to become a successful writer of romantic fiction. Her latest novel, Wedding Season, is her fourteenth.

Matt Dunn’s Ex-Boyfriends Handbook was shortlisted for the 2006 Romantic Novel of the Year Award and the Melissa Nathan Award for Romantic Comedy. His fourth novel is Ex-Girlfriends United.

Roger Sanderson lectured in English Literature during the week and relaxed with rock-climbing and mountaineering at weekends before writing Romance. He has now written 48 medical romances for Harlequin Mills & Boon under the name Gill Sanderson. Roger was a committee member of the Romantic Novelists' Association for twelve years.

Kate Walker has published 52 romances for Harlequin Mills & Boon. Her novels have appeared in over 50 countries and have sold over twelve million copies. Kate has also written the award-winning 12-Point Guide to Writing Romance and A Straightforward Guide To Writing Romance.

£7• £12 Joint ticket for Parts I & II

New books out this month

I have two new titles out this month - well, not 'new' as both are reprints - but they are both now on sale and can be bought on the Mills & Boon web site which is where I found these new widgets to try:

(Just hope this works)

This is for the By Request collection of The Alcolar Family in one volume:

Also out this month:

And my newest release, Bedded by the Greek Billionaire is also now on sale pre-publication. Check out the Mills and Boon web site for details.

Centenary Exhibition Launch

The hotel at which I was staying in Manchester was directly opposite Manchester Central Library. So the very first sign of the Centenary Exhibition that I spotted was the huge pink banner flapping in the wind as it hung outside the the main library building. This banner was advertising the "And Then He Kissed Her" exhibition, celebrating 100 years of Mills and Boon. .
Manchester Public Library is a huge public buildings has a domed central area bigger than the British Museum Reading Room. The exhibition is situated outside the Social Science Library on the first floor.

The Babe Magnet and I walked across the road and into the library building at just after 6.30 to attend the launch. In the library we were directed to the first floor where we were greeted and welcomed by Rose Ryan, Fiction & Reader Development Coordinator, Manchester Library and Information Service and one of the librarians responsible for organising the exhibition. Thank you Rose for appearing just at that 'Help - do I know anyone here!' moment and making us feel welcome. Rose directed us to where the glasses of wine and soft drinks were laid out, instructed us to help ourselves and then, after making sure that I had spotted someone I knew, went back to her meeting and greeting duties.

I think the first face I recognised was that of Linda Fildew, Senior Editor and M&B. We had spotted her earlier in the afternoon while we were getting to know a bit more of our way round the city, but she was on the oppposite side of the street. Now we were able to catch up a little more - remembering the time when she had actually been my editor (one of many and a good few years ago.)

After that I met up with other M&B authors and editors, Jenny Hutton and Sally Williamson, India Grey (seen here with the Magnet)and her handsome husband, new Historical author, Melinda Hammond, Medical author Gill (Roger) Sanderson. I also met Laura and Digby members of the team from MIDAS, the PR company organising the publicity for these very special Centenary celebrations.

And I spent a long time chatting with Sarah and Bethany from M&B PR. We talked about a Centenary event I'm booked for - giving a workshop at one of Manchester's other libraries, and discussed another project that I hope will work out - if it does, I'll tell you more about that soon.



The long room was decorated with huge vases of flowers and in one corner the Hallé singers, mostly dressed appropriately in pink, sang a selection of love sings, starting, of course, with And then He Kissed Her.




There were a few short speeches including one from Claire Somerville from M&B who weclomed us all to the exhibition, pointed out just how far the company had come in its 100 years. She then explained that the two gentlemen in dinner jackets and bow ties were our Mills & Boon 'heroes' for the night. They would be showing people round the exhibition and she encouraged us to 'take advantage of them.' The 'heroes' didn't look too concerned at the though of being taken advantage of.

I met up with both of these guys later and was able to find out a little more about them. (These were the details I had to check because I knew you'd want to know about them!) Phil Rowson (on left) was there in his role as Irish smoulderer Jack Riordan (from Jack Riordan's Baby by Anne Mather). And although he is actually from Lancashire, his accent was good enough to charm and convince me - and I'm someone who hates fake 'stage' Irish.

The other hero was playing one of those popular Greek Tycoons. And I was surprised and delighted to find that his role was actually that of a Greek hero I've 'met' in discussion with his author - but the book hasn't yet been published. Andonis Anthony (right)was playing Leo Christakis the hero from the upcoming The Greek's Forced Bride by my special friend Michelle Reid. Both these books are of course by famous and bestselling M&B novelists from the North of England, appropriately for the setting of the event.





Sadly I missed being escorted round the exhibition by either of the 'heroes' - I was so busy talking ! But Rose Ryan and her colleague Libby Tempest, National Year of Reading Co-ordinator for Manchester did have fun posing for photographs full of passion and romance with them for the press!

I did catch up on the real reason why we were all there before I left.

The exhibition is set around part of one of the curving corridors, with glass cases showing covers and a brief note from various periods from 1908 until the present day. There was the first copy of the first book ever published by the company after it was founded in 1908. This was Arrows from The Dark by Sophie Cole and it was signed of the flyleaf by both Gerald Mills and Charles Boon.

There are some fascinating items of memorabilia from the early days of the publishing house, including a little book entitled "How to live without servants", and a letter to the editors written by Jack London, from the deck of his yacht in 1914.

Mills and Boon didn't always specialise in romance, but started as a general publisher, but in the 1920's realised where its real future lay and concentrated on the romance genre. At first, it had writers like Jack London and John Buchan, but that gave way to Mary Burchall, the first superstar of Mills and Boon. A book, set between the cases, gives the company biographies of some of these women. It was a thrill to see one of my own loans to the exhibition - a 1940s hardback by Mary Burchell entitled Nobody Asked Me on display here.

I had loaned several other books from my collection (it's very difficult to find hardbacks with dust jackets) and you can see some of them in this case too. Including the one where the lady in the pink dress in the middle of the case is the heroine of the wonderfully titled 'Mystery at Butlins'! I can only assume that in the 1950s/60s Butlins was considered an exotic holiday destination.



On the way out of the exhibition - or on the way in if you were not busy looking to see if there was anyone you knew as I had been - there is a brilliant piece of original artwork made up of Mills & Boon covers cut up and moulded into the shape of a corset. This is described like this:

The artist who made the corset sculpture is Ros Burgin. The piece is called ' Stays, Holds and Ties' and is made from M&B covers, gold thread, fabric and steel, and marks 100 years of stories about women's choices and the way their relationships affect change in their lives. It's a stunning and creative image.

The reception was officially supposed to last just 2 hours, but the wine was so generously provided, the conversation and the exhibition so interesting that people were still there over half an hour later. (My apologies to the library staff who had to work late - the event was so brilliantly organised that everyone was reluctant to leave). Even the wine was so appropriately named - Love Saves The Day!

Thank you so much to Rose Ryan who organised everything so wonderfully, to everyone at Manchester library for your friendly reception, and to MIDAS PR for your part in a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Animal catch up

I'm not actually here.

I'm really in Manchester where I am attending (will have attended by the time you read this) the opening of the Mills & Boon Centenary Exhibition And the He Kissed her in the Central Library. And I'll give you a full report when I get back.

But by the wonder that is Blogger's preloading system, I can blog today and have it posted tomorrow.

So as several people have asked, I thought I'd give you a quick livestock updates.

First off - The Hecks

The Hecks as you probably know already are the family of hedgehogs who love in the specially built Hedgehog House at the bottom of my garden. They have been hibernating all winter, but now that the weather is getting milder and more spring like I am expecting them to reappear at any moment.

Well, they are out there. I know they are. The food I put out (cats' leftovers) is always eaten and they leave small donations of hedgehog poo by way of a thank you and a calling card. But I have yet to see a Heck or Mrs Heck themselves.

So I don't have any new pics yet - and I don't know if there are any Mini Hecks around yet. But as soon as I spot one, I'll let you know. I know the Hecks have fans out there. In the meantime, here's a photo from last year.

Livestock 2 - Flora the Floozie and Sid

Flora had her trip to the vet and had the operation so she is now safe to be let outside without yelling for the attentions of any passing vagrant Tom. ( There was one day when George from down the road and one of those passing vagrants were sitting outside on the lawn, peering in through the French windows while the Floozie flaunted herself inside). She bounced back from the op so fast it was as if nothing had ever happened.

She also had way too much energy and running up and down stairs just wasn't enough exercise for her. Even adding in leaping into the air to catch flies as they flew past. So she is now given her freedom to run in the garden - which she adores. She runs up and down the lawn at high speed, jumps and catches flies and climbs trees to her heart's content. She also tries to catch birds by jumping into the air after them but, thankfully, hasn't succeeded yet.

Her outdoor expeditions also take the pressure off Sid who is regularly bounced on whenever he gets close. And his tail makes a wonderful plaything. Though I have spotted him sitting and twithing it deliberately just so that she will pounce on it. They regularly chase each other up and down the stairs and it sounds like thunder - no silent paws when they're having fun.

So here are a few cat pics too to keep you entertained until I get back from Manchester and can report.

Oh and a PS on Flora - can anyone explain why she absolutely loves to lick photographs. The glue on envelopes I can sort of understand - but photos? She'd lick the ink right off them if I don;t get to her fast.

One day I'll catch up . . .

'More tomorrow,' huh?

Yes well . . . Someone stole my brain cell. The one that works; the one I use to write my blogs with. And I've had lots of blogs to write

And life just refuses to slow down. Which means I have plenty to tell you - just not enough time to actually sit down and do it. I have news coming up - I can finally let you know of that good news thing - and some other bits & pieces - but first I'd better finish talking about that Lincoln weekend.

So - Saturday May 17th was an up and down sort of day - and up and down Steep Hill sort of day. And believe me Steep Hill doesn't have that name for nothing. So going up and down it provides a good workout - affectionately known in this family as 'good B&L work' - good bum and leg work.

My up and down routine went something like this

1. Down the hill to Pimento's Tea Rooms to meet my lovely friend Kate Hardy who had travelled to Lincoln from Norwich. To get there I had to walk past the farmers market which is always fascinating We had tea and talk - it's been too long since we last met up so we talked each other's heads off.

2. Up the hill back to the hotel to meet with the Magnet and

3. head down into the town to deliver the handouts etc to the Drill Hall ready for the workshop that afternoon. Then on to the station to collect my editor, Suzanne Clarke and Alex from Midas PR who were arriving to be part of the evening event.

4. Back up the hill to deliver Suzanne to the hotel, snatch a sandwich, change into smart workshop-giving outfit

5. Back down the hill to the Drill Hall for the workshop. (Thanks to Kate Hardy for the photo - isn't that face on the wall amazing?)

At this stage I managed to have a breather - sort of - while I did the 2 hour workshop. 15 people is about the right number. Not too many so that you have to give a lecture rather than a workshop. Not too few so that you find it hard to get different responses and answers to questions. We did some concentrated work on Characters and looked at potential for conflict between them. Everyone joined in and I enjoyed the session. Thank you to everyone who came - specially Jane who came a l-o-n-g way!

then

6 Back up the hill again (this time I chickened out and caught the shuttle bus) for a quick recovery, shower and change before meeting everyone in the hotel foyer and heading . . .

7. Back down the hill again for the evening celebration of Mills & Boon's Centenary.

While we were doing other things, Alex had organised goody bags and glasses of champagne (I almost forgot to get one and only grabbed one of the last ones at the very end of the evening.)

Officially we were a 'panel of authors' but as we all knew each other do well it was really like a gang of friends who had got together to chat about writing and books and of course Mills and Boon. It was all very relaxed and a lot of fun - I think the audience had fun too, certainly the Festival organisers had had good feedback as a result. Suzanne gave a summary of the history of Mills & Boon - after all, that was what we were there to celebrate - and she also arranged a quiz with lots of old M&B covers seeing if the audience could guess the date of publication of each one.

The time just flashed by and before we knew it, it was time to bring things to a halt. But before we did there was one more thing left to do and that was to draw the raffle.

L to R Trish Wylie, Suzanne Clarke, Kate Walker, Natasha Oakley, Kate Hardy

I'm afraid I've forgotten the name of the lovely lady who won but she was a real M&B fan, who bought 18 books every month - and she worked in the libraries so she got brownie points for both of those from me. She was absolutely thrilled when I presented her with the huge box of books. So thrilled that she was actually shaking as a result. Still, it was a fantastic prize with over 85 books from a wide range of authors from all the lines. My sincere thanks to all my author friends who donated their books to this great prize. And of course all the proceeds went to Breast Cancer Research so it was for a great cause.

Eventually the evening broke up and we all headed out to the lovely Italian restaurant where we had booked a table to all of us to enjoy a great meal and celebrate a very successful evening before - you guessed it . . .

8. Heading back up that hill again to the hotel.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I slept very well that night. And woke to the wonderful sound of the Cathedral bells ringing out to announce the morning.

I had a great time. My thanks to Lincoln Book Festival for inviting us to join them, specially to Sara and Karen who put in so much work on the day - and before it. Thanks to the audience - both for the workshop and the evening celebrations and thanks to Alex/Midas for organising goody bags and champagne - always a good way to make an event go well!

And special thanks to Trish, Kate, Natasha and Suzanne for joining me there. It was wonderful to see everyone and I think my voice has just about recovered from all the talking.

Still catching up & Centenary Novellas

Thank you to everyone who sent me get well wishes public and private - I am starting to feel a lot better now, but I'm still struggling to catch up. So I'll get to the Q&A when I can breathe.

In the comments section on Saturday, in response to my post about the reprint of The Duke's Secret Wife, 2paw (Hi Cindy!) said:

Do you think we will get the special Novellas here?? I hope so.

These novellas are a special collection published by Mills & Boon specially to celebrate the Centenary this year. In the UK, you can buy them separately, one by one, in the shops with a couple of new titles out each month, or you can buy the complete collection on the M&B site at a special offer price - which I think works out at saving of about £10! You can find out more information on the books here.

I don't know about publication anywhere else in the world - except that, by accident, I discovered that some of them will be on sale Australia - so Cindy, I can answer your question!

In May the eight books in the Sexy Romance Line will each have a 'bonus classic story' included with the main title. These 'classic stories' are some of the special novellas published in the collection in the UK. I discovered that my own story will be included with the Lynne Graham title, The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride.

Each of these special bonus books will have a gold version of the M&B Centenary logo on the front cover so that they will be easy to spot.

So if you're looking for The Duke's Secret Wife, in the UK you look for a book with a cover like this - out in August.

And if you're looking for a copy of the same title in Australia, then you want to be in the bookshops in May and you're looking for this very different cover.

Same title of mine, very different marketing.

But to be in there with Lynne Graham can't be bad.