And you thought romance was dead! After 35,000 tender clinches, 30,000 kisses and 10,000 ‘I do’s’ Mills & Boon is still booming 100 years on
More than a century on, the company Gerald Rusgrove Mills and his publishing partner Charles Boon founded, Mills & Boon, sells 5.5 million books a year – that’s one every four seconds
Mills & Boon sells 5.5 million books a year – that’s one every four seconds
When the strait-laced romantic novel Arrows From The Dark by Sophie Cole appeared on Edwardian bookshelves in 1909, neither Gerald Rusgrove Mills nor his publishing partner Charles Boon guessed it would be the beginning of a never-ending love story.
More than a century on, the company they founded, Mills & Boon, sells 5.5 million books a year – that’s one every four seconds.
They are printed in 26 languages across 109 countries with 150 new titles added monthly.
There are a staggering 1,500 Mills & Boon authors worldwide – and you could soon be one of them. The publisher is offering one ‘undiscovered’ writer the chance to get their work in print (see below).
But if you associate the brand with vintage bodice-rippers, think again. In an unforgiving market for fiction, Mills & Boon has succeeded by holding up a mirror to many aspects of contemporary womanhood.
Today’s heroines do not have to be winsome virgins longing for wedding bells – though that’s still a perfectly good Mills & Boon plotline.
They can be divorcees, single mothers and secret mistresses. They might even be the ones doing the seducing.
The publisher, which did not permit extra-marital affairs until the Seventies, now offers sex, and lots of it. It markets female erotica through its ‘Blaze’ and ‘Spice’ series, having identified demand over a decade before the 50 Shades Of Grey phenomenon in 2011.
‘Essentially, 50 Shades is a love story,’ says Mills & Boon’s Jo Kite.
‘It has all the familiar tropes of a romance. Romantic fiction stands the test of time because love itself is timeless. So is the yearning for escapism, for a bit of dreamy, feel-good factor and the promise of a happy ending.
'Our novels often feature marriage and babies but with perhaps an international hero and a love story in an exotic location.
'They transport the reader from the humdrum and give them the ultimate power to bring a man to his knees.’
Indeed they do. But the Mills & Boon hero remains a particular sort of man and not the kind real life is likely to deliver. He’s dangerously sexy while also moral and loyal, a confident, charismatic alpha whose heart’s desire is you.
Scroll down to bag your own Mills & Boon book deal...
In an unforgiving market for fiction, Mills & Boon has succeeded by holding up a mirror to many aspects of contemporary womanhood. Today’s heroines do not have to be winsome virgins longing for wedding bells
Current titles such as The Sheikh’s Wedding Contract and Bound By The Billionaire’s Baby, Pregnant By The Cowboy CEO and Taming Her Navy Doc reveal that even if the books’ heroines have evolved by getting the vote and equal rights, their longing to be swept off their feet has not.
Critics of the genre label it regressive chick-lit, but those sales figures, allied to a powerful presence on social media and an early switch to digital to embrace younger readers, are the perfect defence.
As with its shift into erotica, the publisher prides itself on being responsive. Social trends are reflected with a smaller age gap between the characters and coverage of contemporary issues such as infertility, adoption and bullying.
Some books are inspired by landmark events like the Royal wedding, others by Call The Midwife. Until the Eighties we only ever heard the heroine’s point of view but today we hear the hero’s too.
The firm says it has a story for every woman. And with its stable of authors writing comedies, historical stories, thrillers and suspense novels, medical dramas and sci-fi, all overlaid with romance, it probably does.
‘Oligarchs are big this year, on the back of a TV programme about the rush of rich Russians to London,’ admits Kite. ‘We used to feature millionaires but we’ve traded up to billionaires now.’
Almost all Mills & Boon authors are women, but one in ten readers is male.
‘It’s not so surprising,’ says Kite. ‘Men read Mills & Boon the same way they watch romcoms – a lot of entertainment has romance at its heart and a feel-good factor.’
Most writers use a pseudonym, a Mills & Boon convention. It lets them write other genres and ensures that teachers and nurses, for whom writing is not a full-time career, retain their professional privacy.
‘As our books are quite sexy, you can imagine why teachers wouldn’t want their students reading or passing around copies,’ points out Mills & Boon senior editor Joanne Grant.
Many authors, however, are hugely prolific, with readers reaching regularly for the comfortable certainties of their voice. Carole Mortimer published her 200th book in March, having written romances since 1978.
She’s in excellent company. PG Wodehouse, Jack London, Rosamund Pilcher and Oscar-winning script writer (for Witness) Pamela Wallace have all been published by Mills & Boon (though Wodehouse and London featured in the company’s earliest days as a general publisher, before Charles Boon realised romantic fiction outsold everything else).
If you think you’ve got what it takes, then get plotting and enter the Romance Writing Life competition.
You could be joining a literary tradition that has enjoyed 30,000 kisses, 35,000 tender embraces and 10,000 brides saying ‘I do’ over the past 100 years.
Passion, it seems, has never gone out of fashion.
NOW BAG YOUR OWN MILLS & BOON BOOK DEAL
Mills & Boon is offering one writer an exclusive book deal, which will see their work appear under the famous logo early next year.
The winning entry in its Romance Writing Life competition will also be published as an eBook by Kobo and promoted in-store by WH Smith.
To enter, submit a synopsis and the first chapter of your novel by midnight, July 13. Here are a few tips top from Mills & Boon author Fiona Harper to get you started:
- Make your heroine someone you’d like to be friends with and your hero someone you could fall in love with.
- Your characters do not have to be perfect. Flaws make them relatable.
- A good story needs conflict. Use these flaws to block your hero’s path to true love.
- Don’t have your hero and heroine hating each other for no reason at the beginning. There must be strong, believable reasons to keep them apart.
- Don’t assume that readers will believe in the romance just because you’ve put your hero and heroine on the page together.
- Make your hero and heroine earn their happy-ever-after by making them go on an emotional journey. Only if they complete it do they deserve to be together!
For details visit romancewritingcompetition.com.
‘The Doris Day Vintage Film Club’ by Fiona Harper is out now, priced at £7.99
