Filipino Book Bloggers to conquer the world!

courtesy of Kenneth Yu at Philippine Genre Stories

Overdramatic title, I know. But when Tarie said, "We're making plans for world domination." in response to my question, "Hey, what have you guys been talking about?" I understood and supported it completely.

This little exchange happened at the first ever Filipino Book Bloggers' meet-up.

The meet-up happened at Shangri-la EDSA Mall last Saturday. Present were Chachic of Chachic's Book Nook, Aldrin of The Polysyllabic Spree,  Tina of One More Page, Tarie of Asia in the Heart, World in the Mind, Jason of Taking a Break, Rezel of The Seeker, Aaron of Guy Gone Geek, Ace of Ace of Books, Ariel of I Am PinoyPeterPan, Gege of I Flip Pages, Michelle of ArtSeblis, and yours truly. We were also joined by online booksellers, Jasper of Avalon.ph and Celina of Celina's Books and Mags. Completing the group were two publishers: Paolo Chikiamco of Rocket Kapre, joined by his lovely wife Shaps, and Kenneth Yu from Philippine Genre Stories. I got there half an hour late, so I missed Carl Javier, who dropped by to sign his books, which some people in the group purchased. Peter of Kyusireader passed by, too, but couldn't stay as he had another commitment.

Now, since most of us are bloggers and since this write-up is kind of late compared to the others, let me just refer you to better write-ups and blow-by-blow summaries of that event. Check out the following:

• Jason expresses delight at meeting the other bloggers, but also a bit of surprise that the discussion took a serious turn right away.
• Aldrin writes his reflections and shows off his book loot from the meet-up
• Michelle gives a great summary, plus a complete roll call of participants
• Chachic, the organizer of the meeting, exudes pride in the successful turn-out of the meet-up.
• Tina reflects on the issues discussed in the meet-up.
• Aaron talks about discovering new Filipino books through the discussion.
• Kenneth Yu devotes four blog posts to summarizing the event, both in text and pictures, and expounding his insights.

I may have missed a few, and more write-ups may come, so if you want a complete and updated listing of everyone who blogged about the event, you can just check here.

So, back to the world domination thing.

I admit I went to the meet-up with an agenda. I wanted to see how, as a book blogger and a reader, I can help promote reading and Filipino books amongst my countrymen and around the world. Hence, world domination.:) Seriously, though, I blog so much, review so much, but most of the books I read and review aren't even from our own culture. I'd like to remedy that.

Moreover, as a former teacher and having met quite a number of Filipino writers, both young and old, I know that more can be done to get Filipino writing to a wider market, not so much to help the authors and publishers earn money, but to make our culture's voice louder in the great global discourse.

But I've already talked about that enough here and in the Future of the Book post. So now I've made my agenda clear.

However, I do agree with Jason--we kind of skipped the introductions. I was one of those guilty of launching head-on into the discussion. My apologies. We might all be book bloggers, but we blog for different reasons and we blog about different books. It would've been really nice to get to know one another better. 

Ah, but thankfully, there will be other opportunities for us to meet, I believe. Next time, we can actually have a program for the meet-up, incorporating the getting-to-know-you bits and the more serious bits. Hopefully in a better venue, too, because Starbucks was just too noisy, compounded by awful acoustics. Maybe we can even have a book swap or two?:) After all, there was already some swapping going on--Aldrin lent me his copies of The Invention of Hugo Cabret and The Uncommon Reader, while I lent him The Passage; Paolo also lent out several books from his collection of Philippine Speculative Fiction Anthology. 

Regardless of the constraints of the venue, such as shouting to make ourselves heard, I truly enjoyed meeting up and hanging out with everyone. And I heartily enjoyed the discussions and fledgling plans that were made. Whether they bear fruition, we'll have to wait and see, but I thought it was already a great start to have a group of people to talk to about it.

Ok, things to look forward to after this meet-up:

• the launch of a new Filipino YA imprint, which, in my honest opinion, would be a great idea as there seem to be too few Filipino YA books, though there are a lot of YA readers in the country (I'm judging by the number of YA book bloggers and the sales of books such as Harry Potter, Twilight, etc.)
• creating a hub for Filipino book bloggers and publishers alike. So that we all know where to find each other.
• reading and reviewing more Filipino works. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.
• maximizing the site Filipino Book Bloggers. Chachic's volunteered to summarize all Filipino book reviews in her Filipino Friday posts. By the way, even if you're not a book blogger but a Filipino, you're welcome to participate in the discussions.
• In general, create more noise. How? I do not know. But at least get the word out to more local publishers and readers that a very passionate reading community exists here.

You know what I dream of? A local model that's similar to the models in other countries--publishers using bloggers to promote books. Bloggers using publishers to get free books. (Yeah, we're going to use each other, but it works out well for all.) Then, both bloggers and publishers generating enough publicity and noise to bring Filipino works to greater international attention. And finally, creating a critical mass so that reading-- READING!--for leisure will finally penetrate into all strata of the Filipino public.

Hey, I can dream, can't I? And you know what I enjoyed most about the meet-up? It's being affirmed that I'm not the only one dreaming.