Tall, dark and ruggedly handsome strangers will soon be available at the other end of a text message. Mills & Boon’s tales of passionate love affairs might not be at the cutting edge of contemporary fiction, but the publisher’s distribution techniques are.

Mobile phone screens offer a convenient, portable and anonymous way to read some of the hundreds of romantic novels that it brings out each year.

Alison Byrne, the UK publishing director for its parent company, Harlequin Mills & Boon Ltd, said yesterday: “For many people there’s still that embarrassment factor of carrying your Mills & Boon around.

“When you are using your mobile phone nobody knows what you are doing, whether you are texting a friend or playing a game.”

Penguin, Random House and HarperCollins have all signed up with ICUE, a British company offering the capability to transfer books into mobile phone-friendly content. None, however, has pursued the idea with as much vigour as the company founded in 1908 by Gerald Mills and Charles Boon.

“Our Japanese operation has had great success selling our books in mobile-phone format,” Ms Byrne said. “Japan is normally 18 months ahead of the UK. They are finding that it’s women who like reading on phones and romantic fiction that’s rising to the top.”

She hopes that the first Mills & Boon books will be available to download next month.

They are expected to be eight Modern Romance titles (“Set against a backdrop of luxury, wealth and international locations”) and 20 MIRA titles (“The very best in women’s fiction from some of the world’s bestselling authors”).

The Modern Romance series of books will cost £1.99 each; MIRA books will be £4.99. Further titles will become available each month and Ms Byrne said that if the venture proved successful, the back catalogue could be added.

Electronic Books (eBooks) have been more popular in the US than in Britain but demand has been stifled by the lack of an eBook equivalent to the iPod.

Jane Tappuni, the co-founder of ICUE, thinks that the solution is obvious. “It’s the ubiquity of the mobile phone that’s going to do it,” she said. ICUE has a catalogue of about 500 titles, but expects that to grow to nearly 2,500 within weeks.

To get a book the reader would first have to download the company’s software onto the phone by texting “ICUE” to the number 64888. The phone would have to be a newer model with a high operating capacity. An icon would then appear on the phone.

By clicking on this icon the reader would then be taken to a WAP site where all the available books are listed. Downloading a book takes seconds. The cost is charged on the mobile phone bill.

Books can be read in four ways: as autocue-style text moving from right to left across the screen, a scrollable text block moving up and down, single words flashed up in quick succession, or a full page of text. “Teenagers prefer reading one word at a time, but most adults prefer the horizontal scrolling style,” Ms Tappuni said.

Jim Green, digital development director at HarperCollins, said that most adults would find reading fiction on today’s mobile phones uncomfortable. Where phones might come into their own, however, was in selling content to teenagers and for certain genres of nonfiction. “Anything that works well in small, standalone chunks could make sense: dictionaries, self-help books, pregnancy guides, for example.”

Under covers

Some titles to be published next month:

The Greek Millionaire’s Mistress Catherine Spencer.

“Gina Hudson is in Athens to settle an old score, and that doesn’t include falling into the arms — and bed! — of her enemy’s right-hand man. But she’s reckoned without the power of Mikos Christopoulos”

The Desert King’s Virgin Bride Sharon Kendrick.

“As Sheikh of Kharastan, Malik has many responsibilities, and he doesn’t have time for distractions — especially female ones! But when Sorrel, an Englishwoman in his care, announces she is leaving to explore the pleasures of the West, Malik knows he must take action . . . If she wants to learn the ways of seduction, he will be the one to teach her!”

The Billionaire’s Scandalous Marriage Emma Darcy.

“Damien Wynter was as handsome and arrogant as sin. But Sydney heiress Charlotte found herself drawn towards this British billionaire whom she’d hated on sight. Damien stepped in with a challenge: let him lead her to the altar and then make her pregnant — and to hell with the scandal!”

All Night with the Boss Natalie Anderson.

“Lissa Coleman doesn’t do office affairs. Hurt in the past, she keeps her guard up by being witty and sarcastic . . . But one look at Rory Baxter, her tall, dark and incredibly sexy new boss, tests her powers of resistance to the limit!”

Source: Mills & Boon

1,300 The number of authors at Mills & Boon

7.3m books were sold by the publisher in Britain in 2006

Source: Mills & Boon

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