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June 16, 2010
There are all kinds of things musicians say you can’t do with love — buy it, hurry it or stop from fallin’ in it. But you can apparently turn it into a viable export commodity.
And that’s what Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. is doing. The global leader in romance literature for women is continuing with its lofty international expansion plans and will soon offer titles in Russia.
The Torstar Corp. unit has signed a licensing deal with a Russian publishing house to begin printing books in the Russian language.
The deal will include the publisher’s racier romance titles and their steamy plots and chiselled bookcover models — certain to make Mother Russia blush.
And there is no reason to believe that the romance genre won’t succeed in a country that is increasingly embracing the lowbrow, much to the dismay of the Russian intellectual elite, said Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College.
“Sometimes the intelligentsia in Russia is shocked by this because they take an exalted view. Romance is Tolstoy’s War and Peace,” said Mr. Braun, noting the possibility of the government opposing the introduction of Harlequin.
“So will there be an official reaction that they will claim this is somehow going to pollute Russian culture?” he said. “Will the government in Russia allow the people to freely make bad literary judgments?”
Harlequin is counting on it.
Publisher Izdatelstvo Centrepolygraph (ZAO) plans to release more than 170 titles in Russia in the first year in hardcover, paperback and mass-market paperback formats.
While the deal makes ZAO Harlequin’s largest licensee in both number of titles and income, it will represent a small market for the publisher, at least initially.
“Russia is a difficult market for publishers,” said Stephen Miles, Harlequin’s executive vice-president of overseas operations. “Everyone has sort of got a toe in the water there, but no one’s got a good foothold. This gets our toe in the water.”
Tapping emerging markets is a key component to the company’s international plans, Mr. Miles said.