A frisson of horror has often been sensed at the idea that publishing is an industrial process at all; many publishers themselves have been keen to promote the idea that their companies (or 'houses') are in fact philanthropic concerns run out of a selfless regard for the cultural health of the nation. Some people in publishing have probably believed this, but only because they are suffering from a kind of economic self-delusion. For while it is true that some publishers occasionally expect to make a loss on a particularly fine first novel that they admire, or an erudite and detailed biography in three volumes, the fact is that they can only afford to do this because the larger part of their companies' activities are engaged in the mass production of reading material subject to exactly the same kinds of processes and economic considerations as the production of hand-towels or children's toys. (15)
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The key ingredient in the success of popular literature is quantity, both in numbers of titles and numbers of sales. The market must continually be stimulated and satisfied. [...] Dennis Wheatley wrote more than 60 books; Denise Robins more than 170 romantic novels; Ruby Ayres published 143 novels; Barbara Cartland more than 230. (19)
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The literary establishment thrives on the principle of separation, particularly that between 'genre' fiction and 'literature'. It is quite possible to argue that there is no such thing as a non-generic literary form, that such a notion is philosophically untenable. Nobody could write a novel which didn't borrow structurally and thematically from many kinds of other novels. (20)
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In Britain in 1982 the company that spent most on advertising was Mills and Boon, spending £525 million. (32)
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Whether we like it or not, what seems true about romantic novels is that the people who write them most successfully believe in the values that they represent. [...] The 19th century romantic novel was almost always a religious novel, and often relied on the reader's interest in wondering where religious passion ended and sexual passion began. The 'divine-erotic' impulse was what gave the most successful of them their emotional power. Today it is quite evident also that the many writers who belong to the Romantic Novelists Association believe that the romance has an invaluable spiritual part to play in people's lives, and many of them are explicitly Christian.
Editors of women's magazines share this same, almost salvationist, belief in the value of what they are doing. (34)
See in particular chapter 3, "Why Romance?"
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