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Romantic Writer - December 2008
eHarlequin - Is it still your grandmother's bodice ripper?
eHarlequin.com Christmas Specials
Harlequin Enterprises is a company based in Canada that was one of the original publishers of serial fictional romance for women. Since 1949 they have been one of the major players in the Romance genre.
Whole blogs could be filled with the history of Harlequin, and they have truly shaped the industry with their editorial style and publishing business models. A quick look at the Wikipedia article on Harlequin Enterprises will give you a good idea of changes in the last 60 years of romance publishing, from virginal heroines to true erotica. Harlequin has done almost all of it.
It is almost 2009 and Harlequin is working the internet. While consumers have typically been slow to move away from paper books and into online reading, eHarlequin is an expert at delivering its product to the most people at the lowest price, and therefore, they are going to get some things right on the internet.
They make it easy for buyers. First they have many lines of Serial Books that are released monthly to an existing client base according to strict editorial guidelines. Second, they put the ebook readers right on the page, and work with software makers to ensure compatibility. And as always, they keep their prices low. With many content providers still charging nearly $10 for ebooks, the vast majority of the Harlequin online ebooks are under $5 and often available on sale or in discount packages. Harlequin wants you to come back every month and read all the books you can.
For the writer, eHarlequin offers more than just a distant fortress waiting to be breached, or a stack of rejection emails. They have a section dedicated to aspiring Harlequin writers. They offer comprehensive writing guidelines for all of the their existing imprints, as well as special calls for new lines and for special collections.
If you're not quite ready to submit a story, they also have a great selection of articles on writing in the Romance genre, lots of good inside information on their specific editorial practices, and interviews with authors and editors to hear the inside details about what life is like for a Romance Writer. They also offer a paid Critique Service. While I would discourage most beginning authors from paying for editorial or critique services, if you have a desire to write specifically for Harlequin, or if you have a completed manuscript that you think just needs a few tweaks, the Harlequin editors can probably give you some valuable insights (according to their own specialized practices).
I personally would consider Harlequin to be a good potential market. They publish a wide variety of romance, from virginal (well, not quite) to super hot erotica. They do short stories and longer novels, and wide variety of contemporary and historical settings. They even have imprints dedicated to paranormal, fantasy, science fiction and thrillers (mmmmm, the spicy world of vampire erotica).
But I still have my reservations about the market. Mostly, they come from the list on the front page of the Top Ten Bestsellers. You're writing for Harlequin for the money, right, not for the Pulitzer Prize, so you want to sell a lot. Well let's take a quick look at today 10 Bestsellers --
An Officer and a Millionaire
The Tycoon's Pregnant Mistress
Man from Stallion Country
The Sheikh's Virgin Princess
The Ruthless Magnate's Virgin Mistress
The Greek's Forced Bride
Bought for the Sicilian Billionaire's Bed
The Executive's Valentine Seduction
The Virgin's Price
Hotly Bedded, Conveniently Wedded
Hmmmmm. Seems to me, in spite of modern progress, the market is still heavily saturated with Xenophilia (lots of Italians, Greeks and Sicilians), economic imbalance between the male and female character (ew, gross) and potentially abusive domination. In a day when many hardcore erotica markets won't accept rape as titilation, eHarlequin is still giving us Bought for the Sicilian Billionaire's Bed.
I'll admit I am committing the cardinal sin of the critic (criticizing something I haven't even read). But I'll just say that the Top 10 list is always a big turnoff for me, and to recover my muse I have to go visit the aussiebum site.
Links and resources:
The Writing page at eHarlequin
The writers guidelines
Thanks for reading our first big post on Romantic Writer. Drop a comment or apply to write for the blog if you want to join in the discussion.
-- Romantic Writer
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