Red Dress Ink, one of the first publishers to recognize the market for frothy tales of dating, shoe shopping, and climbing the masthead at glam mags in the big city, is hoping Spanish-speaking women will be just as captivated by chick lit as their English-speaking peers appear to be.

In May, Red Dress released seven of its titles in Spanish. More will follow later this year or in early 2005, depending on the response to the initial list, says Margaret O'Neill Marbury, executive editor of Red Dress, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises.

The books, all of which were originally written in English, were chosen because they sold well in their first language and because their protagonists are seen as having "a slight every-woman appeal," Marbury says.

"One of the nice things about the books that we've acquired is the characters do speak to a large audience and they're universally relatable," says Marbury. The trade paperbacks also adhere to the standard conventions of chick lit—the women are young, single urbanites searching for love and career success.

While Red Dress and other chick lit imprints have recently tried to broaden the category by featuring characters who are married, for example, or well beyond their 30th birthdays, Marbury says she wants to introduce the genre in its most basic form to this new audience of readers. "It's just like a writer who wants to develop a fan base. If you switch your voice and your stories too quickly, you tend to throw your readers off."

To reach its intended audience, Harlequin will target traditional bookstores and mass market outlets, in particular Wal-Mart, in areas that have a high concentration of Hispanics, notes Blanca Tovar, senior product manager for Spanish programs at Harlequin. "Wal-Mart is very aggressive in capturing the Hispanic market," says Tovar. "They already have sections dedicated to Spanish books."

To promote the books, Red Dress will run ads in the back of its English-language titles. The hope is that Latinas who prefer to read in English will see the ads and pass the word on to their friends, mothers, and cousins who favor books in Spanish. Harlequin will also market the books directly to the 5,000 women on its e-mail list who read in Spanish—names gleaned from lists of those who have bought the company's Spanish-language romances.

That database is just one of several ways in which being part of Harlequin gives Red Dress an advantage in reaching out to Spanish-speaking readers. Because of the company's international focus—Red Dress books are published in 13 countries—the editors tend to look for titles that hold cross-cultural appeal. Also, Red Dress was able to turn to its office in Spain for translators instead of relying on untested freelancers. The imprint may need all these advantages if its competitors respond as Tovar suspects they might.

"Chick lit has just became so big over the last few years that the market is saturated," she tells Críticas. "So I think the publishers may see that this is a good opportunity to grow."