From _Merchants of Venus_
Nov. 11th, 2021 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutPaul Grescoe’s _The Merchants of Venus: Insight Harlequin and the Empire of Romance_ was published in the mid 1990s by a Canadian publisher; I have no idea why I’d never heard of or seen it until recently. It’s chatty and fun and has this in it.
“At the beginning, there was no thought of being a major player in the industry[of then pretty new paperback books]. In the words of his daughter, Judy Bonnycastle Burgess, “When empty presses came along, Father thought it would be fun to publish the ‘new’ paperbacks.” Ruth Palmour [Bonnycastle’s secretary, who followed him to the new gig after working for him for years at Hudson’s Bay] agrees: “Harlequin was a filler for a nice steady business.” Bonnycastle was certainly not interested in making his fortune from publishing. “He couldn’t understand people who just worked for money” recalls his son, now a wealthy businessman, who looks back on the origin of the company with a little awe and a lot of hyperbole: “This may be the only company in history that required no money to start — because they had to pay the printing bill in 60 days, but Curtis [the distributor to newsstands] paid them in 30 days.””
Seriously. Cash flow is an amazing thing.
“At the beginning, there was no thought of being a major player in the industry[of then pretty new paperback books]. In the words of his daughter, Judy Bonnycastle Burgess, “When empty presses came along, Father thought it would be fun to publish the ‘new’ paperbacks.” Ruth Palmour [Bonnycastle’s secretary, who followed him to the new gig after working for him for years at Hudson’s Bay] agrees: “Harlequin was a filler for a nice steady business.” Bonnycastle was certainly not interested in making his fortune from publishing. “He couldn’t understand people who just worked for money” recalls his son, now a wealthy businessman, who looks back on the origin of the company with a little awe and a lot of hyperbole: “This may be the only company in history that required no money to start — because they had to pay the printing bill in 60 days, but Curtis [the distributor to newsstands] paid them in 30 days.””
Seriously. Cash flow is an amazing thing.