Remember the time when Mills & Boon promised dollops of romance from faraway land? The Harlequin Enterprises Ltd series, often read surreptitiously, promised a world where an eligible business scion would fall for the girl-next-door. But if reading of such fairytales of Greek tycoons finding love in American lasses was too far-fetched for you, find your protagonists murmuring sweet nothings in your mother tongue with the recently launched series.
After bringing to Indian readers tales right of Bollywood, the regional language series is a translation of these popular ‘M&Bs’ in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Malyalam. Country manager of Harlequin India Pvt Ltd, Manish Singh adds that there is more romance on offer by Indian writers penning their stories closer home. “Romance as a genre transcends geographical boundaries and languages. Indian editions bring the concept of Mills & Boon further close to home with characters, settings and challenges that they can relate to and identify with,” says Manish, adding that the publication is in the process of making regional language content available digitally.
“We have plans to acquire authors for regional language and non-fiction, as well as single title programs. At present we have launched global authors in the regional Indian language series with themes and storylines that we think are preferred by Indian audiences. The stories are set in locations that are already popular in India such as Paris, London and Spain. The regional launches are pure translations and are based on popular genres, themes, demographics, authors and popularity of content. In some cases, a context has been given to help readers relate better to the culture and settings in which the story is based,” he further explains.
The volumes in Indian languages will be easily accessible, targetting readers who do not buy from multi-brand chains but book retailers. The promotions will also look at clubbing attractive offers with the series. “Customers at railway stations and airports can expect a travel pack that will include freebies such as a travel voucher from goibibo.com, and so on. Brand tie-ups would be an integral part of the plan along with consumer offers, unique campaigns and contests for the regional belts. Pricing wise, the regional language novels are extremely competitive,” says Manish adding that availability at places of high moving population are key to successful distribution of regional books and magazines.
In a country of multiple dialects, picking four languages is a tough call. The decision, however, was taken after much market research with a scope for expansions in the future, briefs the country manager. “We selected these languages based on literacy levels, readership, percentage of population that speaks/reads a particular language; discretionary spends and logistical feasibility. Relatively speaking, West and South tend to do better due to availability of larger retail space and urbanization (density of metro towns),” he adds.
Taking on the Bollywood-fixation of ‘M&Bs’ the company is has come up with a Lootera series in keeping with the launch of the movie – starring Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha – which hits screens today. “We had tied up with I Hate Love Stories in the past as well as Jhootha Hi Sahi. Bollywood is the cultural face of India, hence it’s only a natural extension that Bollywood is in some way associated with our novels. We’re always striving to give our readers something special from their purchases and saw the theme of Lootera as a perfect fit with the brand,” shares Manish.
However, the focus has shifted from Bollywood heroes and business scions to relatable professions for the protagonists in the India-specific series in English. “Bollywood as a theme that works well for our audience. However it’s not just limited to Bollywood; our characters of Indian books reflect the true modern India and they are from varied fields like landscape designing, education sector, corporate world and so on. There is a lot of synergy between Bollywood (romances) and Mills & Boon thus it makes an interesting subject for our readers; for instance we published a book ‘Falling For A Bollywood Legend’ by Mahi Jay and in August there is another book lined up by Passions... winner called ‘Bollywood Fiancé For A Day’ by Ruchi Vasudeva. Shoma Narayanan – who has published three books with us already globally, has recently dealt with the theme of ‘finding love again’ in her book ‘Secrets & Saris’,” he adds.
The hunt for Indian authors to be a part of the enterprise is still on, and so are opportunities to fill in as the face for the ‘made in India’ series. “For our English publishing, we started having Indian authors a few years back under our Indian property ‘Passions Aspiring Authors Auditions’, and till now have acquired and published five authors. We also started a model hunt in India three years ago where more than ten Indian models have already featured on Mills & Boon novel covers. We have plans of extending these two programmes to regional publishing,” says Manish Singh.
