A selection of Harlequin romance novels from the 1950s, 1980s and today.
The unexpected history of Harlequin romance novels involves a Hudson's Bay fur trader and the Toronto Star. )It is said that 60 per cent of all households do not purchase even one book per year.
To keep the printing company busy during the war years, Richard and his manger Ruth Palmour began buying the reprint rights to a variety of out-of-print books and republished them for Canadian readers.Bonnycastle's wife Mary began editing the books and noticed those romance novels were becoming their best-sellers. So she and Palmour went to Richard with an idea. They wanted to pivot the company exclusively to romance.
Knowing the Harlequin readership was comprised mostly of women, he reasoned the same techniques that sold soap to women could be used to sell them novels. He applied that P&G strategy to Harlequin by creating distinctive Harlequin packaging that framed the author, title and cover art. His idea was to market the books in a place where women already shopped: Namely - grocery stores.
With the acquisition of several publishing companies in the U.S., Harlequin now boasted an 80 per cent market share on both sides of the border.
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