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Vol.9 : Belinda Hobbs (Harlequin K.K.)
April 25, 2007
Gov't mulls ideas to boost Tokyo markets' size, influence
Popularity rankings drive shoppers
Meeting seeks cooperation
New law adds financial protection
Expanded coverage: Unusual training greets new grads
synonymous : 同意語の
making great strides : 大きく前進する
alpha male : 強い男性（群れを支配する頂点の雄）
backlist : 既刊書リスト
（ B: Belinda, T: Terri ）
| T : |
I am going to ask about, everybody knows, but I am going to ask about a description of your business? |
| B : |
I think most people know Harlequin, certainly if they're, you know, here in Japan, it's Harlequin, in the UK, in Australia, they would know the brand name as Mills & Boon.
In North America certainly Harlequin is synonymous with romantic fiction, romance novels, and here in Japan too it has been for a long time. Publishing women's romance fiction is the main part of our business, but I'd sort of like to think that we are moving into a situation where we are more like a translated women's content provider really.
So not only do we have our main series of romance fiction, we have branched over the last few years into mainstream women's fiction, still translated fiction, of course, but mainstream fiction by New York Times best-selling authors and the like. We have just this year launched our first range of Harlequin comics and you know, we are making great strides in the digital arena as well where people can download our stories, they will soon be able to download our comics. It's all very exciting...
We published about, this year it would be about 650 titles, all of them translated locally in Japan and we choose those from a pool of about, probably North America published about 1200 new books a year. So we choose 650 based on what we think is going to sell the best here in Japan. So we translate and edit all of those locally.
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| T : |
You made the point before we began recording that actually it's still the alpha male all over the world. |
| B : |
Yeah, and that surprises a lot of people that, you know, every month, and everywhere around the world and that's, you know, we sell our books - we have offices in 16 countries, we distribute to nearly 100 countries and it's always out, you know, in North America it's called Harlequin Presents, here it's Harlequin Romance... |
| B : |
It's always the alpha males that are really selling well. It's amazing. |
| T : |
How would you describe, I mean, I know what it means... |
| T : |
But how would you describe an alpha male for our ESL learner? |
| B : |
Yeah, he is rich, he is powerful. |
| T : |
That's good. I'll take one. |
| B : |
He is - he is always, he can be a bit mean sometimes I think but, you know, he always comes around and makes sure that he sweeps the heroine off her feet and lives happily ever after. But you know, he is a very powerful and a very domineering type of character. |
| T : |
We don't want any of the real life guys to get the wrong idea, because it's fantasy. |
| B : |
It's definitely fantasy and that's the business that we are in. We are in the business of entertaining women, providing escape. And really, reading one of our books, it's two or three hours of just pure escape. It's fantasy, it's just having a good time and relaxing when you have got some time to yourself. That's what it's all about. It has nothing to do with your real life, it's just a couple of hours of personal time. |
| T : |
Description of the market, who is your competitor here, there aren't other Harlequin types... |
| B : |
Well, we are lucky in a way that there isn't another Harlequin. In other markets lots of companies have tried to copy the Harlequin model because it just is so successful, publishing all these series, romances, in a series. It's sort of like if you imagine it as publishing a series of books but in a magazine type of distribution, where our books go into the shops twice a month. They are on the shelf for a month, and what we don't sell after the month, you know, it's destroyed, it's really like, fresh lettuce. |
| B : |
We, keep backlists, so if readers did want to get back copies they can order them from us of course. But you know, it really is a fast moving consumer goods type of business that we are in... |
| T : |
Japanese authors, I think, you guys have started... |
| B : |
We have done a couple of tests with Japanese authors, we have a book coming out on May 1st. We have run a couple of really interesting competitions for would-be local romance authors. |
| B : |
We published the winning stories in an anthology. So that's out this May 1st, so it's very soon. |
| T : |
Okay, so this podcast will be out just before hand... |
distributor：販売業者
nitty-gritty：肝心な
spine out：背表紙を見せた
blurb：宣伝文句
display bins：展示ケース
huge point of sale：非常に広い販売スペース
race to the bottom：引き下げへの競争
incentivize incremental purchases：追加購入を奨励する
（ B: Belinda, T: Terri ）
| T : |
We covered market conditions in Japan and other countries. Is there anything else you want to add to that, differences between market conditions here and overseas? |
| B : |
So, apart from the readership in Japan and the target market, there are so many other differences just in terms of going to market and selling the books. It really is so different from other countries, here in Japan. I think we find that the distributors have so much more, I won't say, power, but so much more control over the way we go to market. |
| B : |
Very different to other markets. We have to get approval for so many things that we do. They are becoming a lot more cooperative in recent years and we are just really working on building our relationship with them to allocate our books better, be more efficient. So that's an interesting sort of, just nitty-gritty of doing business, but it's very different from a lot of markets. |
| B : |
But the pricing law here in Japan, no discounting of books, it's the same in Germany and France, but here it's a lot tougher to find ways around that. |
| B : |
And even just the way, the book store environment itself, that's something that blew me away when I first came to Japan. Every international visitor that we have had from Harlequin is just amazed by the size of some of the book stores and just the volume of books in the stores, and so many displays, spine out, it's... |
| B : |
It's, wow, it's like how does anybody choose a book! It's really amazing to see. In North America for example, or in Europe, in Australia, bookstores are so geared towards helping the customer make a quick and good choice. The people don't have much time anymore, so if they can - a book store can quickly direct someone to the romance section or the mystery section or what have you, it makes it a much nicer purchasing experience.
Here though it's... and I am always asking poor girls in the office, if you wanted to buy a mystery for example, how would you choose it - how would you find it in the book store? Well, they say, I have to know the publisher, I have to know who does good mysteries and then I have to find that publisher's section and then, I have to sort through the spines to find something that grabs me then pull out their book to read the blurb, the obi. |
| B : |
Then maybe I'll buy it. Whereas in, you know, other countries it's just - and to a certain extent it happens a little bit here, but not so much. You know, in other countries there's display bins and huge point of sale material and face-out displays and promotions and... |
| T : |
Going to Barnes & Noble in New York, which is where I'm from... |
| T : |
It's like a piece of art, it's a like a museum or a gallery or library. |
| B : |
Displays are so much different and you know, in a lot of markets, it's that whole pay-to-play type... |
| B : |
Here it's all about in-store relationships, how you get your books displayed, what promotions you can do. So there is a, bit of, a mindset adjustment for, I think, anyone coming here to work in a business where that's an issue. |
| T : |
Absolutely. Wow, yeah, and it's pretty shocking when you walk in the door. Well given that, how would you like to see the market develop here? |
| B : |
Well, you know, I would love to see - in a way I am glad that we do have that 'no price discounting rule' here, because I think in a lot of markets, we have been really hurt by retailers heavily, heavily discounting the prices of books and the publishers end up having to foot the bill for that. |
| T : |
The race to the bottom... |
| B : |
Go straight to the bottom and it affects their ability to acquire really good quality new authors. So I am hoping in Japan, I am happy with this law and that can stay. But as for other things, like in-store promotion, in-store display, I would really love to see a gentle shift towards a more western sort of approach to that. Really helping consumer choice, and speed up decision making - anything that can really help customers get in, choose their book, you know, incentivize incremental purchases, all those sort of things that, you know, we pretty much take for granted in the US, to see that introduced here in Japan. |
| T : |
Excellent. Well, we are on #6 - what's your experience with the Nikkei Weekly? |
| B : |
I love that paper. I have only really looked at the paper version, I really do have it... |
| B : |
But I think that's such a great source of information about the market, what people are doing, consumer ideas. And all the new product launches which, some are just amazing, it's inconceivable to me, the quality and the style of things available here and the innovation that takes place. It gives us some great ideas. |
 Paul Riley / Managing Director
Oxford University Press Japan 
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