publisher, Rlipa. T he author himself explained that one
key tO his success was the " huge aspirarion for the Eng-
lish language".
"This is not like the.mru..u..a:. English-literature marker.
Insread, ir needs an English that is highly acccssible, sim-
ple and wirh srories thar are still interesring and rele-
vanr," Bhagat said.
T he sa lcs of borh Mills & Boon books and those by
Bhagar are helped by th e fact that cach book costs be-
tween 95 and 12 5 rupees, wh ich is € 1.50 to €2. Though
still a lot of money when rickshaw pyl!ers eam 55 euro
centS a day, they are affordablc for the dass rhey are
J.imed at. And althollgh ar 699 rupees (about € 11 ) The
I.ost Symbol in hardback is mo re expensive, ir is still
:1ffordable for India's middle dass.Accarding ta Siman littlewaad, international
Jlrecror of Random H o use, publishing in India is so
tragmemcd that it makes linie se nse to talk of a si ngle
marker. "There are all sorts of ~ and pcople do-
mg all sons of differem th ings in d ifferent languages,"
Linlewood said.
One Strang trend is local ioteresr a mi loyalties. The
Tehelka survey showed that aurhors had stra ng ~
iliiru. in their home regions, or in the places where their
oO\'els a re ~. Meanwhilc, few peoplc were reading
those authors w ho were once seen as dassics of rhe
Indian marker: mvstery wrjrcr Agatha Christie ( 1 890-
19 -6) and humorist PG Wodehollsc ( 1881-"1975).
One booming area is local Ind ian "chick lir", accord -
mg to Priyanka Malhotra, director of Fllil Cirde Publish-
mg. The boom in sales for Mills & Boon came after they
~rarted prinring and marketing operations in India a nd
locuscd more d oselyon what local readers wanted.':
Love is in the air
T
he British publisher Mills & Boon has become synony-
mous with romance noyels. Fouode<! in 1908 by Gerald
Mills and Charles Boon, it is now a sUbsjdjary of the Cana-
dian publisher HarleQuin. In ils early years. the company
marketed works by weil-known lilerary figures such as PG
Wodehouse, but ils owners soon realized thai they eDuld
increase ü.W wilh bocks aimed al a female audjence.
By the start of the Second World War, Miils & Boon had
built its reputation on providing harmless romanik fietion.
Its books were parlicularly popular during and after the
war, when women were loolung for an easy ~ trom the
problems of real life. "I always look for a Mills & Boon
when I want a pleasanl bock," said one middle-class woman
in a post-war lestirnQojaJ. "Your troubles are at an end
when you ehoose a Mills & Boon no .... el ... Romances W in
hospitals, with Wies like Love the Physic;an, became espe-
eially popular in the 1960s.
in 1971, Mills & Boon merged wjth the Canadian pub-
lisher HarleQuin, whieh expanded its romanee ~
throughout Europe and Japan. By the mid-19BOs, Harle-
Quin Mills & Boon was selling about 250 million bocks per
year worldwide. In 1990. shortly after the fall of the Berhn
Wall, staff at the company's West German office gave
750,000 free bocks to East German women.
Today, the company's no .... els ha .... e mo .... ed away from the
cliehe of pleasant, harmless romance to include erotic
themes, as weil as hjstorical aod susoense tjtIes. I1 is slill
the world's leading seiler of romanlic fietion.A recenr comperirion to find Indian writers resulted
in an "'overwbelming response" sa id Singh, rhough un-
Iil the four selected loeal aurhoTs are published [ater Ihis
year, readers will have to make da wirb I-Iarlequin's
A Trip with the Tycoon - rhe story o f a love affair
"'under the summer of the Indian sun", set at th e Taj
Mahal in the city of Agra. []IC Guardian News & Media 2010Business Spotlight 19