Contrary to popular perception, however, emotion in Harlequin romantic novels is about more than physical attraction. In Anniversary Waltz by Anne Marie Duquette, Megan Kendall has just discovered that her 10-month-old marriage to Reed, an unfeeling workaholic, was never legally consummated. Jerry, her childhood love, forwards her unfiled marriage license along with a note: "'I'm sending you your ticket to freedom. Burn this license, and you're home free. Keep it, file it with City Hall, and you'll end up an unhappy, bitter woman-if you aren't already.' "She wasn't bitter," she told herself. She wasn't. But she was unhappy, desperately so.

"'Your anniversary is in six weeks. You have that long to decide. It's your choice. I love you. Jerry.'"

Harlequin characters may live on emotional roller-coasters (always with a happy ending, of course), but Harlequin the company became the world's leading publisher of romantic fiction in large part because of its consistency. Month after month, Harlequin Enterprises delivers entertaining stories and high quality service to millions of romance fiction fans around the globe, an impossible task without a solid IT strategy and the tools to get it done.

Harlequin was started by the Bonnycastle family in Winnipeg, Manitoba (the Canadian province immediately north of Minnesota), in 1949. It remained a family operation until 1970, when it went public. In 1981 the TORSTAR Corporation, publisher of the Toronto Star, purchased the shares making Harlequin Enterprises part of the TORSTAR group.

Today, Harlequin is a leader of romance fiction publishing over 70 titles a month. It has annual revenues approaching $600 million (Can.) and offices in 34 countries. Its books are translated into virtually all the major languages in the world: German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Polish . . . the list goes on.

"Our strength emerges from the editorial content of our books," says Chris Jorgensen, Director of Computer Services. Harlequin editors work hard to deliver compelling love stories featuring strong, emotionally-appealing characters and engaging plot lines. "We hope you will write from the heart and we will feel touched by what you have to say," advises the company's guidelines for prospective authors. "When you put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), do so because you have something to share with other readers." "The books are always light," says Jorgensen. "They're easy to pick up and easy to put down. It's a nice, positive thing to be able to escape for a while and come out feeling good."

While the core elements of appealing romantic fiction are in every Harlequin story, the publisher also offers varying product lines aimed at different niches in the genre. You want classic, bodice-ripping sizzle? Try the Harlequin Temptation series. Traditional ideals of marriage and family? Go with Silhouette Romance. Romantic comedy? There is the new Harlequin Duets series, launching in May 1999. There are several of other series focusing on suspense or medical themes, for example, and one called Love Inspired features Christian characters.

Each series has its own editors. "They work very hard at keeping the same style and feel between authors in the same series," adds Jorgensen. "We're very good at that. That's what our readers liked, and the phenomenon just continued to grow."

The company continues to generate fresh ideas by encouraging prospective authors, whether or not they have writing experience, to submit stories. Harlequin receives over 1,000 unsolicited manuscripts per month and accepts about 36.

Harlequin sells its books through traditional retail channels and through its book clubs which deliver directly to the home. Harlequin has a large website (www.romance.net) where fans can order books and gifts or read previews, collect recipes and so on. "It is a great vehicle for authors and readers to converse," says Jorgensen.

Information a Key to Harlequin's Operation
As with any business, information is the key to Harlequin's operation. The publisher began using a mainframe service bureau in 1978, the same year that Jorgensen came on board, and purchased its own IBM mainframe in 1984. But with business expanding by 30 to 40 percent annually in the mid-eighties, more capacity was needed by 1988.

IBM wanted the company to go with a water-cooled system (which was not yet in production) that would have required a $200,000 upgrade to the water supply in Harlequin's building. Hitachi Data Systems offered an air-cooled EX 30, which also had a smaller footprint than the proposed IBM alternative. "We already had some Hitachi printers, and they had never broken down," recalls Jorgensen. "We knew Hitachi quality, and so we felt good about the decision to go with them."

Hitachi Fail–safe Since 1988
Since that initial decision Harlequin has purchased four Hitachi mainframe upgrades. The latest was about two years ago to a Pilot 15. "The machine went in and it's never had a blip," says Jorgensen. "In fact, we have had no mainframe outage since 1988 using Hitachi hardware. That's pretty remarkable. We enjoy a very stable computing environment, due in part to Hitachi technology."

Presently, in its Toronto corporate headquarters, Harlequin has the Hitachi Pilot 15 mainframe which handles the retail, direct marketing, and financial processing. The company also has Hitachi Data System's 7700 Disk Subsystem, the 7490 Tape Subsystem, and Hitachi 6900 laser printers, which make quick work of generating invoices.

Jorgensen adds that, when it came time to choose between Hitachi Data Systems and IBM for the most recent mainframe upgrade, both companies were offering machines of comparable performance. "Hitachi, in my opinion, included better consulting services and a streamlined maintenance program for all the Hitachi hardware; mainframe, disks, tape drives and printers."

In 1990 a client server network was installed and the company recently added a mid-size IBM AS/400, to the mix--used mainly to assist with overseas for software development. All processing for North America is done in Toronto, while Harlequin offices in the United Kingdom and Australia use AS/400s to handle their processing needs.

With 20 million names on Harlequin's mailing lists, generating invoices and orders on a weekly basis is no small task. The system also has to keep track of constantly changing inventory and provide quick access to customer data for its phone-based customer service representatives in Buffalo, New York. "We like to have a subsecond response time to queries on our on-line system," says Jorgensen.

There are about 500 end-users so the system is not like that of a large bank, for example, which may have tens of thousands of end-users. "There is a large data base," says Jorgensen, "but there are not a lot of external forces hitting the system."

FUTURE GROWTH
As Harlequin continues its strategy of growth, having data spread around various platforms throughout the company forms part of the solution. For a variety of reasons, the popularity of individual titles and series can vary by country and even regions within a country. Knowing more about current sales will provide better focus on future marketing efforts.

To achieve full value from its dispersed data sources, Harlequin has embarked on a "data warehousing" initiative. Both Hitachi's Nucleus software and some additional Hitachi hardware form part of this solution.

A group of senior Harlequin executives gathered recently for a Nucleus powered demonstration showing the power of "data warehousing". Some pre-defined queries were demonstrated, and executives kicked-in with their own pet business questions and marketing puzzles. "They were excited at having that kind of speed and power at their fingertips" says Jorgensen. "They wanted to know how much it would cost and how soon it could be ready for their use". And so, much like a Harlequin romance, the Nucleus demonstration ended on a positive note.

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See for yourself !

If you haven't downloaded the FREE IPIX plugin, do it now! See where Harlequin manages the cold data behind the warm romances.

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If you set out to read all the Harlequin books sold over the past ten years, averaging a little over two hours per book, you would be reading for the next quarter of a million years.

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