Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 20

Business The Anne 'B' unloads frozen orange concentrate at Port Canaveral today. On Tuesday, the American Rlgel loads cargo. The Savannah, an Intercoastal cruise ship, visits the port on Friday. The Starshlp Royale follows her usual schedule. Port schedule I 14C Monday, June li, 1985 Penning profits Ticker Talk Chet Currier AP Business Writer -i Romance writing becomes the 'cottage industry' of the '80s By JANE E.

ALLEN 1 writing the first one I was constantly reading others." Herrington was lured into the field by friends, many of whom now write romance novels themselves. Of the 30 women she sees regularly at meetings of the Shreveport, chapter of Romance Writers of America, 10 are now published, the 27-year-old writer says. All are married. They've read and absorbed the Silhouette guidelines for contemporary romance, the ABCs of what editors want to see. The writers must tell their story through the heroine's eyes and create a woman who is strong but still vulnerable.

Herrington says her books are anchored in reality. "My hero in my first book looked exactly like my husband," she says. "I think most of us dedicate our first book to our husbands." But she says "There are no real perfect men. Our heroes have flaws. Real men have flaws, too.

They do what we want them to do. But our heroines don't manipulate them." Sex is handled by Silhouette in a very strict way. Creating a sex scene is like painting by numbers. There are five levels of romance intensity, ranging from Silhouette Contemporary Romance to the hottest, the Silhouette Desire and Silhouette Intimate Moments lines. They offer predictability like movie ratings: readers know just how much sex to expect by the cover.

The difference between the lines, says Schulhafer, is primarily the length of a love scene. The more romantic lines offer the chance for sensuous encounters, but never promiscuity; for heartbreak, but never for a hero or heroine's death, and for conflict, but never unhappy endings. The publishers promote all their love scenes as "sensuous" rather than sexual, telling writers to focus on textures and sensations rather than graphic sex. They've found the formulas that sell. In the lingo of the industry Herrington says she's still "earning out" the royalties from her first book.

"I'm young in this industry," she says, adding that she would eventually like to "move into the mainstream" of fiction writing. JACKSON, Miss. Encouraged by publishers like Simon Schuster, which sponsors "how-to" seminars from coast to coast, nearly a million women in America are trying their hands at romance writing, the new cottage industry of the 1980s. From Atlanta to Jackson to Seattle, Silhouette Books, which Simon Schuster created in 1980, is crisscrossing the country this year to promote what it calls "contemporary brand-name romance" and to pick up new authors. In Jackson, where B.

Dal-ton Booksellers reports sales of 144 romance books a week in its store in Northpark Mall, the number of books sold is leveling off, but the number of writers is increasing. According to Betty Ruth Hawkins, who promoted a Silhouette "How to Write a Romance Novel" workshop for the recently opened Northpark shopping center, about 40 of the 250 participants had submitted manuscripts to publishers and 20 were in print. "People who read romance novels believe they can write them," she said, despite a 90 percent rejection rate by some "Everybody in Mississippi thinks they can write, that they have a little Faulkner in them." Silhouette Books publishes 28 new titles or about 7 million volumes a month. It sells anywhere from 250,000 to a million copies of each book at $1.95 to $2.95 a copy. Its stocks in supermarkets, drugstores and variety stores don't include releases by its once-rival line, Harlequin Romances.

Harlequin bought Silhouette, but both are now marketed through Simon Schuster. The books stay on display for only a month, before being shipped back to warehouses. According to Bud Egbert, who introduced Canada's Harlequin Romances to America nearly 25 years ago, and who heads mass market distribution for Simon Schuster, women generally clear most new titles from the shelves within 10 days of release. The romance book market, which comprises about 35 percent of the mass market paperback industry, is like the Institutions cool on high-tech stocks NEW YORK High-technology is a bit out of style, but International Business Machines is still the height of fashion on Wall Street these days. That's the message that emerges from the latest compilation by Standard Poor's Corp.

of the stocks most heavily owned by the "biggest participants in the market, investing institutions. IBM, of course, has been widely known for years as the darling of pension funds, bank trust departments, insurance companies, mutual funds and other large pools run by professional money managers. Still, figures are striking: as of early this month, institutions owned $40.9 billion worth of IBM, three times as much as any other stock. i General Electric was in second place, at $13.6 billion, followed by Exxon, at $13.3 billion, and General Motors, at $9.1 billion. The top four remained in the same places they occupied on the institutional hit parade a year ago.

But further down in the ranks, there have been some notable changes since last June. Consider these high-technology names: Hewlett-Packard, down from No. 13 to No. 29; AMP, down from No. 30 to No.

62; Motorola, down from No. 33 to No. 70; Texas Instruments, 48 last year and 119th now; and Intel, down from 71st place to 144th, almost off list. To regular followers of the stock market, this slippage is no great surprise. Many high-technology stocks have suffered of late from intense competition in their businesses, high hopes that went unfulfilled, and earnings reports that didn't measure up to Wall Street expectations.

Some of the biggest gainers in institutional Ownership are participants in another hot 'industry of the 1980s" financial services. Sears Roebuck climbed from 12th place to eighth; American Express vaulted from 32nd to ninth, and Citicorp from 46th to 24th. Another group on the rise is made up of the regional holding companies that were created a year and a half ago with the breakup of the old American Telephone Telegraph Co. Nynex jumped into 42nd place; Southwestern Bell 47th; Ameritech 48th, and Pacific Telesis 49th. Of what concern is all this to individual investors? Obviously, the institutions, by the sheer size of their activity, play a large part in moving stock prices up and down.

So their changing tastes bear monitoring. But as points out in its weekly publication The Outlook, while the institutions are worth watching, they shouldn't necessarily be emulated by an individual. "Institutions are in an unending competition," the firm points out. "The result is that pressure to register an above-average performance in a given time period may cause a professional money manager to sell a stock even though fundamentals remain favorable. "In an identical situation, the individual investor might decide to hang on to an issue.

"Heavy institutional interest in a stock can be either helpful or damaging to the individual investor who owns the issue," added. "A flurry of buy orders from several institutions may push a stock's price up sharp- 'y- "On the other hand, even a large-capitalization issue can take an abrupt fall if several money managers decide to sell it at about the sametime." TODAY AP Graphic NEARLY A MILLION WOMEN TRY THEIR HAND AT ROMANCE NOVELS how-to' seminars attract would-be authors despite 90 percent rejection rate magazine market, he explains. "Readers know precisely when they go on sale." The production and marketing is done by formula. "Boy meets girl, there's a conflict and they solve their problems. It's like producing Campbell's Soup," Egbert says.

"Romance is a phenomenon for women all over the world," says Egbert, who has watched publication expand into 20 foreign languages. The demographics indicate that the average romance reader is 322 years old with one or two children. Sixty percent of them work at least part time and most have a year of college education, Egbert says. Joan Schulhafer, a promoter of romance writers and workshops, compares the burgeoning romance industry, with its magazines and clubs, with the culture surrounding science fiction. However, she sees an additional element.

Love stories fill an emotional real life, courtship doesn't last forever," she says. Romance writing also reflects a change in women's identity. "Romance is the only genre where you can talk about women being successful," she says. "You'd be amazed at the level of feminism among romance writers." The writers come from all backgrounds and ages. Terri Herrington of Jackson, for example, has published two Silhouette titles.

A writer since the age of 12, Herrington says part of her preparation was immersing herself in romance novels. "I read hundreds of them before I started, and while Construction firm wins $2.4 million NASA job Capsules Cheryl Kassak Specialty Maintenance and Construction Inc. of Lakeland has won a $2.4 million NASA contract for an addition of the Test Group Support Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. THOMAS J. WEBER has been named vice president for marketing and sales at Scientific Systems Services in Melbourne.

BROWNELL-BITNER Associates, Melbourne, has been selected by Stinson-Head Inc. of Boca Raton to develop an overall construction management program. LITTLE CAESARS has opened a store in the Eau Gallie Place Shopping Center in Indian Harbour Beach. ENRIQO'S has opened at 921 Miracle Mile in Vero Beach. Gene Seisslger is owner.

ED BECK, partner of Wall Bray of Titusville CINDI DRONEY, executive secretary and assistant to Golden Years publisher, has been named Golden Years Employee of the Month for June; and has received the Golden Circle Award for her outstanding job performance. SUTTON PROPERTIES, Palm Bay, is developing the Interchange Square Shopping Center at 1-95 and Malabar Road in Palm Bay. The center will be completed in early 1986. Maria Clark is leasing agent marketing director. CHIROPRACTIC CENTER has opened an office at 888 Sarno Road in Melbourne.

Dr. K. Vincent Dungan is ownerchiropractic physician. AD PLUS Inc. of Cocoa has acquired Concept Management developer of Christian Life Manor, an adult condominium project in Titusville, as an account.

Cocoa Beach, has been appointed chairman of the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants Committee on State and Local Government for 1985-86. MET-CON Cocoa, has won a $31,450 NASA contract for the construction of robotic control housing to be used in robotics research and development. The terms of the contract include delivery and installation of a prefabricated indoor room to be used for robotic control. Meetings this week 'Sophisticated' robots enter industrial world Business Technology THE PALM Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, breakfast meeting, 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Palm Bay Ramada Inn.

Guest speaker is Brevard County Commissioner Andrea Deratmy. Call 723-0799. THE COCOA Beach Area Chamber of Commerce's Committee of 100, breakfast meeting, 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, Merritt Island Holiday Inn. CaU 452-3760.

THE TITUSVILLE Area Chamber of Commerce, luncheon meeting, noon Wednesday, Royal Oak Golf and Country Club, Titusville. Guest speaker is Marylou Strollo, development director for the Brevard Art Center and Museum. Call 267-3036. NATIONAL CONTRACT Management Association, dinner meeting, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Patrick Air Force Base Officers Club.

Call 729-7352. FLORIDA SPACE Coast Purchasing Management Association dinner meeting, 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Fat Boy's, Eau Gallie Causeway, Melbourne. Guest speaker is Charles T. Walsh, manager management education and training Harris Corporate Headquarters.

Call G.C. Etherlngton at 724-3620. THE INTERNATIONAL Association of Business Communicators, Central Florida chapter, dinner meeting, 7 p.m. Thursday, House of Beef, 801 John Young Parkway, Orlando. Guest speakers are Gerri W.

Cordle, vice president Employee Relations for The Orlando Sentinel; and Alan Vitberg, president of A.K. Vitberg Associates. Call Ann Wallace at 345-4381. THE PLATINUM Coast Credit Women International, breakfast meeting, 7 a.m. Thursday, Ramada Inn, Cocoa.

Guest speaker Is attorney Jack Kirscfienbaum. Call Mary Curts.799-7144 or Mary Ridings, 452-0950. By JOHN HOLUSHA N.V. Tlnrn Hn Strvk Two robots are working together in a manufacturing cell assembling oil pump units for an automobile engine. One uses a remotely mounted television camera to "look" at the small castings that are the top and bottom of the pump housing as they move along a conveyor belt.

When it recognizes a bottom part, it reaches out, picks it up and places it on a fixture. Then the other robot, which has a camera mounted on its arm, Jooks for one of the two gears that make up the internal mechanism of the pump. Placing one inside the housing, it reaches for the other gear and attempts to mesh the two together. If, as often happens, the teeth do not slide together smoothly, a sensor in the robot arm's "wrist" detects the resistance. The robot then wiggles the gear, the way a human assembler would, until the teeth line up and the part slips Into place.

The robot "knows" the two pieces are fitted together properly when its arm is extended enough for the gear to be all the way into the housing. The robots, produced by Adept Technology are part of a demonstration at the robotics industry's Robots 9 conference held recently in Detroit. They are an example of how the robotics industry has advanced in just a few years from producing relatively simple machines that reached out blindly to move an object from place to place or weld a point in space, to sophisticated devices that are Increasingly imitating human senses -such as sight and touch. Robot manufacturers hope to convince potential reprogram the system to recognize and assemble the new parts. New fixtures and conveyor lines are not required.

Flexibility and adapatability are among the major themes running through the robotics industry this year, with many companies showing new robots in which grippers or tools on the end of an arm can automatically be changed so that multiple tasks can be performed unattended. The emphasis is on providing solutions to manufacturing problems, rather than just demonstrating a robot and leaving it up to end users to figure out how it can be used. Indeed, much of American industry's hesitancy at moving rapidly into robotics stems from the difficulty in adapting basic machines to individual processes. "A robot is not a toaster," said Peter A. Cohen of the International Data Corp.

"It cannot be plugged in right out of the box and perform effectively." As a result, the robotics industry appears to some analysts to be splitting into two groups. The larger companies have the engineering resources to sell not just robots, but application solutions to end users. The smaller companies seem to be concentrating on supplying robots to the larger ones or to systems engineering consultants hired by manufacturers. Only a few major manufacturers, such as the automobile companies, have large enough engineering staffs to integrate robots into production systems by themselves. Vision and force sensing systems for robots are available today.

On the horizon is a development that could add now dimensions to robot adaptability: artificial intelligence programming. industrial customers that they can add robots to their factories without having to tear up their existing processes. "In the past, robots were simple, dumb machines," said Frank Bibas, an engineer with Adept, which is a spinoff from Westinghouse's Unimation division. "Now if you go the next step and add vision and force sensing, the robot can solve its own problems to some extent." By having the vision system focused on the conveyor belt, the first robot can "recognize" the parts it needs and pick them up, no matter which way they are pointed. Older, blind systems required elaborate fixtur-ing systems to present the part to the robot at just the right location and with just the right orientation.

Putting a camera on the arm of the second robot helps it place the gears accurately. The sensor makes sure they fit together properly and also prevents cross-threading of the screws that hold the two pieces of the housing together. In the past, robots simply went through their routines and if something was out of place they either bashed into It or missed it entirely. Vision systems and touch-sensitive arms make robots more costly and complex, to be sure. But they also make them much more flexible.

If a company decides to make something new, all it has to do is.