This year marks the centenary of Mills & Boon publications, a company synonymous with romance in its most concentrated form. Yet behind the stale plot lines and questionable cover art lies a story of unique adaptability and a business model as shrewd as any on Wall Street. When the Boon brothers inherited the firm it was very much in decline. G.R. Mills and Charles Boon, a pair of refugees from Methuen, had set up the publishing house at the turn of the century and right up until the late 1950s, the revenue from rental libraries and over-the counter chain stores like W.H. Smith, and Boots the Chemist was booming.

With the rise of television, however, the family firm was in dire straits. Rental libraries had been a form of entertainment for the masses throughout the 1930s. Many of its wares were more questionable than canonical, and when the libraries fell out of fashion it was Mills & Boon’s authors that suffered alongside the hardback industry. It was then up to the Boon brothers, Alan and John (the latter an alumni of Trinity Hall) to turn the company into what it is today: an enterprise of global proportions and ferocious selling power. In Great Britain alone, one Mills & Boon novel is purchased every two seconds.

An astute bargainer, John Boon oversaw a “sweetheart deal” on unusually favour- able terms with the American publishers Harlequin Enterprises, ensuring a degree of autonomy for the British arm. Mills & Boon itself retains a distinct identity throughout the world.
Such national autonomy has come to fashion Harlequin, now a global conglomerate, selling 131 million books a year in 107 international markets and 29 different languages. One of the secrets to their success? A strict business model that gives its regional editors cut-throat power over what appears on their shelves. They prioritise customs over characters, situation over storyline, commercial value over artistic integrity.

While their novels are idealised, the industry that they work in is not; their books are only available to buy in book-shops for a month. Then, they are online for 3 months. After this time, any unsold copies are withdrawn and pulped. Fans looking for particular books after this time must find them second-hand.

Editors, therefore, can take liberties. In order to turn the ‘global’ into the ‘local’, romances are transposed across cultural contexts in a process that Professor Eva Hemmngs Wirtén terms ‘transediting’. Beyond their native Canada, and other English-speaking nations, Harlequin publish in Poland, Japan, Brazil and India amongst others.

By the time the manuscript reaches the respective publisher’s desk, the author’s job is over and the transediting procedure begins. Sometimes the translation process is sensitive, changing its characters names to those closer to home. Occasionally it is brutal, with the translation abridging the originals radically, censuring and twisting plots.

Some western works simply do not translate. We asked several mainstream romance wirters how they thought their books would fair at the hands of international editors. “As a writer of BDSM erotica, I do have some concerns that other cultures will not understand our specific sexual desires,” says Tiffany Reisz. While Tiffany might find that her niche market does not exist in more restrained countries, the system does allows for a new type of Western export: the sexual stereotype.

“My books are translated into about 19 different languages in 25 countries,” Joan Johnston, explained. Joan is not one of Harlequin’s authors, having made the New York Times Bestseller List eight times in her 25 year career. Her novels share the same basic notions of escapist romanticism: the woman in trouble, the traitorous enemy, the irresistible hero. Their universal status, however, does not undermine the fact that her titles sell a little slice of raunchy America. It is interesting to ponder whether a housewife in India is reading The Rancher and the Runaway Bride (1993), The Texan (2001) or the ultimate of domestic fantasies, The Cowboy Takes a Wife (1992) looking forward to the release of this year’s

Similarly Mills & Boon has its own international sex appeal. Its lines are rife with historical romance, the Lord who falls for the chambermaid and actually marries her. Think Cambridge, perhaps set your story 200 years back in time and let your word count tick over as the ball-gowns disappear. Think of a pseudonym and then post your manuscript to the London office and you might just become an international best-seller.

If you put it into the Harlequin publishling machine, don’t expect it to look the same on the other side of transeditation. Or if you have a summer spare, it might be interesting to see how one niche or another translates into Polish.