As of April 2011, Harlequin Enterprises is removing the Silhouette branding from several of its lines. Only Harlequin branding will remain. While I have yet to find a link to a formal announcement, the news is all over Twitter and Facebook, with a well known editor confirming that Harlequin/Silhouette authors have either already received letters advising them of the change or they will receive the letters very soon.
Silhouette Special Edition, Desire, and Romantic Suspense will all fall under Harlequin branding, joining Harlequin Nocturne, which was previously branded as Silhouette Nocturne. Word has it that Love Inspired will remain a Harlequin brand, but Steeple Hill will be no more. I’m not familiar enough with the Inspirational lines to comment on the change.
Silhouette first emerged in 1980 as part of Simon Schuster. Harlequin bought Silhouette Books in 1984 and continued to run the Silhouette-branded lines from its New York offices while overseeing the Harlequin brands at its Toronto office. There was some overlap. Harlequin Intrigue, for example, ran editorial out of the NYC offices.
Now all the lines will be branded as Harlequin. What does this mean to readers? I’m not sure. Will they follow the line or wonder what happened to the brand? I would think they will follow the line, if Harlequin publicizes the transition well.
Pure speculation on my part, but the melding of the brands has me wondering about the future of “former” H/S lines. Harlequin Superromance and Silhouette Special Edition offer different editorial visions, but both are “long contemporary series.” Harlequin Intrigue and Silhouette Romantic Suspense are similar in some aspects, different in others (Intrigue apparently has a higher suspense to romance ration, and SRS has a longer word count). Harlequin Blaze and Silhouette Desire, however, in my mind at least, are totally different.
These are interesting times in publishing!
How do you feel about the changes?
I haven’t been on Twitter and FB much the last couple days, so this is news to me. Harlequin is the better known brand, so I’m wondering why they didn’t do this long ago. I hope they can keep the Silhouette lines.
What surprises me is that they’re dropping Steeple Hill. I thought inspirationals were doing well. Maybe that’s just in the US, though. Harl is worldwide. And we do have other inspirational publishers in the US.
Edie, you’re right, there are a lot of Inspie pubs in the U.S. Because I’m not an H/S author, I didn’t get the letter so don’t know specifics. I’m not familiar with the differences between Love Inspired and Steeple Hill. Maybe the Steeple Hill line itself will go away but the stories – at least some of them – absorbed into Love Inspired?
If I find a link to a web announcement today, I’ll update my post.
I dunno, I just feel weird about the fact that now there’ll be Harlequin Superromance and Harlequin Special Edition, for example. Complete speculation, of course, but sooner or later the differences between the two could blur and eventually one will be dropped. Or the one not performing as well could be dropped and the remaining authors absorbed into the surviving line. Maybe that’s paranoia speaking as a result of everything that’s been happening in publishing the last two years.
To me, publishing is starting to feel like a string bag of marbles with the string pulling ever tighter while marbles fall out a worn spot in the bag without notice.
Wow. Didn’t know about this and I’m on Twitter alot. (Not so much on Facebook.
I don’t think the LI series books will be gone. I think the single title Steeple Hill books, which Harlequin has already stopped, won’t be around. The Steeple Hill LI line is still acquiring new authors.
Interesting info.
Abbi
Wow, I hadn’t heard. I must not follow the right people. 😉 Thanks for the good info. I’ll be curious to hear how this plays out.
Hi, Cindy: gosh, I face this with mixed emotion- Harlequin is a savvy business. They usually know what makes the most sense for their business. I hope people will be absorbed into Harlequin and this won’t result in job loss. I also hope the lines will be well defined. Silhouette, I believe, was the more sexy line than say Intrigue. Any news about this, or should we just wait for the official announcement.
Abbi, maybe they’ll cal it Harlequin Love Inspired instead of Steeple Hill Love Inspired. I thought Steeple Hill was a separate line. Thanks for clarifying!
Gwen, it was a shock to me. I didn’t see it on Twitter, but heard it had been announced or leaked on Twitter the night before I saw it on Facebook (which was yesterday).
Donnell, I don’t have any more news. Just that the Silhouette branding is going away and everything will be Harlequin from April 2011 on. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. I’ll be interesting to watch unfold, that’s for sure. H/S is THE category publisher.
If I find a link with more information, I’ll update my post.
I’m not a H/S author, but have learned to enjoy alot of their authors. What a surprise. There are definitely alot of changes going on in the publishing world. I agree with the comment that Harlequin is usually pretty savy when it comes to publishing so I’ll bet they have a plan to make it work.
Hi, K.R. I have no doubt Harlequin has a plan to make it work. And I hope they succeed. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life. And the different lines offer variety. I would hate to see them meshed too much.
I hadn’t heard this either. Interesting… I was a big fan of Silhouette in the old days and was sorry that it had become part of HQ in the first place. Now it’ll be gone. It was confusing about the lines – intrigue vs. suspense, etc. Sounds like it’s all about streamlining their line. Makes sense in light of today’s publishing woes.
Interesting news. No doubt the change is prompted by what business changes are usually prompted by: Sales. Harlequin certainly does seem to be in the throes of lots of changes, and I expect this is just more of the same restructuring and evolution that brought us Carina Press and the self-pub arm (whose name escapes me). I agree that some Silhouette and Harlequin lines in a particular sub-genre have a lot of similarities, while others do not. As Publishers Weekly announced, it looks as though thrillers/mysteries, as a genre, have overtaken romance. Perhaps the Harlequin romantic suspense lines will be further separated and differentiated to take advantage. Wish I had my crystal ball!
It sounds to me like Harlequin is updating their branding and that readers won’t be losing those lines, they’ll just be unified under the Harlequin brand. One really can’t be certain until Harlequin makes the changes official.
Wow, major publishers are dropping fast. Thanks for the info.
Hi, Kathy, thanks for dropping by. Yes, category romance had a heydey a long time back, didn’t it? I think when I first entertained the notion of writing romance, the Dell category line was around, as well. However, I wasn’t familiar with Sihouette when it wasn’t part of Harlequin. I didn’t read romance novels in the early Eighties. I was up to my eyeballs in English Lit essays!
Lise, I bet a lot of us wish we had our crystal balls, including the higher ups at HQ. The publishing world is changing so fast. Hey, at least they’re trying to do something. Maybe consolidating the brand will work. I was on eHarlequin today, and it doesn’t seem like there were many lines left with the Silhouette branding anyway.
Susan, you’re right, until after the changes are in effect and the lines have a chance to play out in the marketplace, HQ will know more (and, eventually, then, so will writers).
Caroline, I wouldn’t say Silhouette is dead. It’s just a name change. What happens next year will be interesting, though. I wish HQ the best and hope for great sales for all their lines, even though I don’t write for any of them. For one thing, they’re Canadian. 🙂 For another, they’re a household word.
I’m sitting on a just finished manuscript intended for Desire, which is probably why. I’ve always contended how the decide which shows to cancel is to check and see which ones Laurel loves. I think Desire will survive because its the only one with male POV. I’ll have a lot of questions for the HQ editor at the Surrey conference in a couple of weeks.
Hi Laurel, Desire is still business as usual. A new senior editor was appointed in August and they’re still acquiring new scripts (Cat Shields, for example). My agent is sending one of my mss to them tomorrow, and believe me, she wouldn’t do that if she felt the line was going under in any way. Cindy’s right when she says it’s just a name change… for now.
As for Desire being the only line with a male POV… um… that’s not true. I know Presents has a male POV as well as Silhouette Special Edition, Harlequin American and Harlequin Medicals. I critique with one of the SSE writers and she definitely writes from her hero’s POV as well as her heroines. In fact, I think it’s more the norm to have both POVs in category – which is a good thing. 🙂
LOL, Laurel. As Alison says, there are plenty of other lines that also feature a male POV. I’ve written several manuscripts targeted to category lines, and only one–the first one I wrote back when I was a toddler–didn’t have male POV.
Have fun at the Surrey conference, Laurel. I’ve heard it’s a good one!
Alison, best of luck with your Desire submission.
I’ll be very curious to see what happens to the two romantic suspense lines. They’re quite different, as you point out, but if sales aren’t where the bigwigs need them to be, perhaps they’ll be combined? I certainly see Harlequin Intrigue for sale in more locations than Silhouette Romantic Suspense, but I have no idea what that could mean. I suppose we sit and wait for more information!
Hi Jamie,
Intrigue and Romantic Suspense are different enough that hopefully both will survive. However, if sales tank for one, I would imagine they’d just cancel that line. Like they did with Temption when Blaze sales overtook the Tempts. Supposedly there was a Blaze Blush sub-imprint that was supposed to be more like the Temptation just longer, but I didn’t see much of them around.
For the last 3 to 4 years Harlequin has been pulling back on the Silhouette imprint. First they got rid of specific lines (like Presents and others etc…); then the number of books issued each month decreased; next the word count was dropped. It was only a matter of time before Harlequin stepped in and took over Silhouette completely. It’s been a slow, deliberate process and I’m very sad to see Silhouette shut its doors. There is a totally different emotional feel and flavor to a Silhouette book. It’s hard to define but they have a warmth and heart tugging appeal that seem to be missing in some of the Harlequin products. And maybe the word “product” is what defines the differences in the best possible way.
Hi, Linda. Yes, Harlequin is definitely a business, like every other big publisher out there. And businesses rely on the bottom line. Harlequin has in fact owned Silhouette since 1984, so they really aren’t stepping in and taking over. They were in charge all along.
Publishing has changed so much over the last 50-70 years. I don’t think we can deny that ALL publishers are very much businesses now. If the numbers don’t add up, lines get cut. If the NYC editors remain in place, there’s no reason the “feeling” of the NYC lines should change. Unless those lines aren’t resulting in sales. Then the tone might change.
All we can do is speculate until we see what happens….
This is news to me, Cindy. Hard to speculate on what will happen until the dust settles. Though it sounds like there may be fewer markets for writers, maybe there will be more slots in the lines which remain.
I think 20 years from now we’ll all look back and these tumultuous times will have a much different perspective. All we can do is try to do out best with each and every effort. The rest is sadly out of our hands.
Well said, Maggie.
I agree with the comment that Silhouettes had a different feel from Harlequins. When HQuin got rid of the line I wrote for, Silhouette Romance, I didnt know what to do with my career! Silhouette Romances were distinctly different from Harlequin Romances even though both were traditional romances. Silhouettes have a more American feel to them while the HQ Romance line feels more British/Australian.
Fortunately I was able to restructure my career around erotica–a big but beneficial change for me–and now write as Suz deMello for a number of publishers–including Harlequin Spice Briefs.
Good point, Sue. Sil. Romance was a different animal. But Harlequin Romances don’t go through North American editorial. They go through British editorial. If they were edited out of Toronto, I think they’d have more of the North American feeling.
Congrats on Spice Briefs!!!