In a market where 60 percent of all households in the United States do not purchase even one book per year, romance novel readers spend an average of 1,200 dollars a year on their addiction, whether for escape or titillation. Though the compilers of "bestseller" lists scorn to include romance novels, the genre accounts for over 40 percent of all paperback sales in North America and is spreading in popularity to a surprising number of countries around the world. Employing strictly formulaic guidelines and innovative marketing, Canadian publisher Harlequin Enterprises controls 85 percent of the romance market worldwide. Any supermarket or variety store customer will recognize the mildly lurid cover with a title like Savage Promise or Fierce Encounter on sale by the checkout stand as a romance novel, and almost all will be familiar with the name that is almost synonymous with the romance novel, Harlequin Romance.

Harlequin Enterprises...