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Mills & Boon moves into greetings cards

05.10.07 Alison Flood

Mills & Boon, the romance publisher, has teamed up with greetings card producer The Greetings Factory to create a range of cards which will launch next February. The move is part of a range of non-book product and retro-style publishing lined up to celebrate its centenary next year.

The cards use backlist titles from the 1920s onwards and feature quotes—possibly including "Lipstick and Lies: Barry dreamt that one day the world would accept him as Barbara" and "Dress To Kill: Phyllis and Audrey had killed before and they knew they would kill again!" It is also working with puzzle maker Ravensburger on a collection of "adult" puzzles using retro jackets. The puzzles will be launched this December.

The centenary publishing programme will see a collection of 24 short stories (two each month) published with iconic '80s-style -covers. The books, which will include Assignment: Seduction and Promised to the Sheikh, are priced at £1.49 and are by top Mills & Boon authors. "We've got some great new photos featuring couples in a clinch, and we've got a mix of our best themes of the boss, the tycoon, the wedding and the sheikh," said retail marketing and sales director Clare Somerville.

All series romances will feature centenary logos on their covers, and M&B will release a 2-in-1 "collectable" centenary series title each month.

A BBC Radio 4 feature documentary started last week, and a blanket PR campaign will be staggered throughout 2008, with an extra push for Valentine's Day. M&B is also planning Mori research on modern romance and sexual mores.

Marketing will include multibuys as well as a Tesco Clubcard promotion and a Woman's Weekly competition in February with a retailer tie-in. The publisher is producing centenary point-of-sale and a coupon booklet with 12 offers.

An exhibition/archive, "Readers, Writers and Romance", will be staged in Manchester Central Library next June, and will move through other north west libraries into 2009.

"We want to disseminate the message about Mills & Boon and what a lot of pleasure it gives to millions of people," said Somerville. "We want to communicate how the brand has evolved to overcome the perception it is still stuck in the 1970s. We are focusing on our contemporary status, reinforcing our position as the global leader in romantic fiction."

Book Mills & Boon

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