413. Romancing the Readers: MILLS & BOON BOOKS, 1980

MILLS & BOON, Philippine Ad, 1980

In the 1980s, starry-eyed bookworms fell in love with MILLS & BOON Romance Books, that led them to raid bookshops to buy these escapist works of  fiction, mostly directed at women. The romance novels were published by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon in 1908, until the Boon family sold their company to Harlequin Enterprises of Canada in 1971, a successful licensed seller of  MILLS & BOON titles in North America.

Various MILLS & BOON 1970s-80s titles, Source: Gumtree

In 1976, an Australian office was established in Sydney to handle sales in the Asia-Pacific region. A large chunk of the MILLS & BOON sales in Asia and Oceania  came from the Philippines—along with India,  Australia, and New Zealand. The books became readily available in the country by the late 1970s, and became very much in demand, pushed by magazine advertising, which announced title releases regularly.

MILLS & BOON books were exclusively distributed in the Philippines by Philippine Book Distributors with offices in Pasig. These were distributed to large bookstore chains like National Book Store, Alemar’s, Merriam-Webster, PECO etc. The books were priced at Php 7.95 each, while gift packs of 4 books, cost Php 31.95  in 1980.

MILLS & BOON, Local Ad, 1980

Scores of MILLS & BOON novels were  released each month, covering a wide range of possible romantic subgenres. Some of the popular 80s titles include: "Mackenzie's Mountain" (by Linda Howard), "Leftover Love" (by Janet Dailey), "Savage Surrender", "Abduction" (by Charlotte Lamb), "Pagan Lover" (by Anne Hampson) and "The Tempestuous", "Burning Obsession" (by Carole Mortimer).

MILLS & BOON March Releases, 1981

The books continued to be very popular all through the ‘80s decade, inspiring Filipino entrepreneurs to cash in on this large romance book market. Benjie Ocampo, the proprietor of Books for Pleasure, Inc., which carried MILLS & BOON books,  started a line of books called Valentine Romances, printed in the vernacular. The books, when launched, enjoyed a strong patronage, peaking with 10,000 units sold in a span of 3 months.

In 1992, the Precious Pages Corp. was started by Segundo D. Matias Jr. and Richard Reynante, who worked in TV entertainment and advertising field. Knowing the tastes of Filipinos in entertainment, they launched the Precious Heart Romance books in Tagalog language, and met with unprecedented success that grew exponentially in  the next 5 years. 

MILLS & BOON local Ad, 1980

The enterprising duo bought their own printing machines, created a talent pool of the best Filipino writers, and cornered the OFW market with their more affordable books. In time, Precious Hearts Romance became  the bestselling Tagalog romance pocketbook in the country, and even inspired a TV drama series based on the PHR stories.

There was a major shift in readership preference with the cheaper, Tagalog-language romance novels, thus MILLS & BOON was eased out of its early dominance of the romantic fiction market. It is no surprise then that today, Precious Pages Corp. has entered an agreement to translate select Harlequin Mills & Boon titles into Tagalog, which are sold online under Precious Hearts Romances Pocketbooks.

 SOURCES:

Mills & Boon Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_%26_Boon

Mills & Boon UK: https://www.millsandboon.co.uk/

Best 1980s Mills & Boon Romance: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/151274.Best_1980s_Mills_Boon_Romance

Precious Hearts Romance website: http://phr.com.ph/about-us/