At LOL: Lit Out Loud! Manila's 1st International Literary Festival
Last Nov. 18 and 19, I was fortunate enough to attend LOL (Lit Out Loud), the first international literary festival held here in Manila, organized by the National Book Development Board. The festival was actually till the 20th, but I couldn't make it the last day as I had another seminar to attend. Anyway, the first two days were full enough for me, what with listening to and interacting with writers, agents, and educators.
Though I was there for work reasons, I believe I enjoyed the festival more as a reader than as an editor. Obviously, I love books and reading. I do own a book blog, after all. And I am part of a book club. And I have been talking about connecting more readers with authors/publishers and vice-versa. And so, attending this festival has been more of a venue for me to engage with authors and get at least some part of this message across: Hey, there are a lot of Filipino readers and a great many of them are active online. Sit up, take notice, and take advantage of it.
So, here are the highlights of the festival, for me, as well as some reflections on each:
Keynote by Butch Dalisay - where he talks about his experience writing novels, dealing with an agent, and the future of novel-writing in the Philippines, in general. He also said that his next novel would be "big" and would appeal to more readers. I heartily appreciated the last sentiment.
Panel on the Novel with May Jurilla, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, and Rose Torres-Yu - The panel discussed varied aspects of the novel. May Jurilla showed the numbers of the sales of Philippine novels from 1920s to 2000. The numbers, however, did not include the genre novels nor comic books, which supposedly greatly outnumber the cumulative sales of both English and Filipino literary novels. The thing I remember most about Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo's talk was this incident of UP Press publishing a book from a genre writer, which created a little furor in the university community.
During the Q&A portion of this panel, I stood up to give a suggestion. I don't think I communicated it well enough then, but thankfully, a few others who went after me did. My suggestion was, in essence, for writers and publishers to connect to the vast numbers of Filipino readers, especially through social media, because these readers are the markets for their books and they can be a powerful force to help promote Filipino literature. Also, to attract more readers, I think there must be a great variety of reading material out there and that each type receives its own just marketing. A lot of people like genre fiction or YA, but get so very little of it from local publishers. There are also people who like literary novels, but sometimes the Filipino literary novel suffers from a lack of marketing.
One way toward bridging this gap between the readers and the writers or publishers is to communicate via the social media venues that a lot of readers populate today. Carl Javier, indie publisher and writer of The Kobayashi Maru of Love, also mentioned that things are changing and publishers have to "get with the program."
I am neither a writer nor publisher. Just a reader. But I heartily agree. I am proudly part of a Filipino reading community, as a book club member, as a book blogger. There's so much energy here that others are taking advantage of. Why not the local authors/publishers?
There was an interesting panel on Intertextuality and Plagiarism with Sarge Lacuesta, Carl Javier, Angelo Suarez. The issue of plagiarism, of course, is very timely, given recent events among the academe and the Supreme Court. Thing is, I had fun during this panel just watching the interplay among the speakers. They were friends and they were joshing each other. What's not to like? Bottom line, though: Sarge says that, with a bestselling novel, even if it is derivative, you can't argue with its success. Carl has no problem with mash-ups, while Gelo thinks that the decontextualization is the art itself and not the product. Bottom line: intertextuality exists and so does plagiarism. Where the line is drawn, though, is yet unsettled.
I attended the talk on The Importance of Literary Agents and How to Get One, with Mita Kapur and Jayapriya Vasudevan, out of curiosity. I know that literary agents are a requisite for writers who want to get published in the US, UK, and in other countries, but not here in the Philippines. I wanted to know whether the local industry was looking towards this already. I found the two ladies extremely charming as they explained what a literary agent does and how to get one. I don't know, though, whether there'll be an upsurge of local literary agents now. But if there is, that is one interesting job.
On the second day, I made sure to attend the panel on How to Market Literary Titles with Rino Balatbat and the two Indian ladies previously mentioned. Fantastic suggestions on marketing were given, but essentially, the panelists said that the author is the best marketer for the book. The author must take a more active part in making his book visible.
During this session, too, I was able to ask about online marketing and how effective it really is. For instance, do the website hits really translate to more sales? I had to ask the question because from my perspective and perhaps from the perspective, too, of fellow book bloggers or readers who are active in sites like Shelfari, Goodreads, LibraryThing, even Twitter, marketing efforts of authors, publishers, and publicity from fellow readers seems to be very effective in getting the word out and influencing us to buy those books. But I wanted to know if sales figures show that it really is effective. Mr. Balatbat, Random House Sales Director for Asia, said that, currently, it's hard to quantify exactly how many sales were influenced by online presence or social media activity, but they are paying close attention to it because it's a vast market, albeit fairly new.
I also took the opportunity to thank Mr. Balatbat for sponsoring our NYRB Reading Week. Book geek that I am, I think I gave a little whoop when he gave me several book catalogs from different publishers, like NYRB, Knopf, and Random House.
The last two panels I went to were How to teach literature to Young Adults with Mailin Paterno-Locsin and Anna Rodriguez and How to make book trailers with Christopher Cheng. As a former high school English teacher, I loved the ideas presented by Ms. Locsin and Ms. Rodriguez. They were terrifically in line with teaching for understanding, which is my other passion. And Christopher Cheng was an entertaining and energetic speaker, who showed the crowd how even a non-tech-oriented person can actually produce his or her own book trailer with just his trusty Mac. Moreover, he read from his upcoming book, Sounds Spooky, which I will definitely get for my kids. I wonder, though, if my kids will get a chance to hear him read in person. He's a fantastic reader.
Unfortunately, I had to go do a personal errand earlier in the day, so I missed the session on Writing Online with Carl Javier, Luis Katigbak, and Marne Kilates, moderated by none other than fellow book blogger, Tarie Sabido. Tarie tells me, though, that it was very successful and informative for those beginning with online writing and marketing.
I also missed sessions with Vikas Swarup, author of Q & A, on which the movie Slumdog Millionaire was based and Tara FT Sering, Filipino chick-lit author, whom several Filipino book bloggers I know have read.
As I said, the festival was a high for me, mostly because it was a venue for this reader to interact with those writers and publishers. In the future, I hope and believe that, in similar festivals and conferences, more readers will have the same opportunity to interact with the writing and publishing community and say their own piece as readers. After all, I think the readers now are more than just a passive target market. If we look around, readers are increasingly becoming participants to the whole book publishing and promotion industry.
 |
| May Jurilla and Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo. (Photo source: NBDB Facebook page) |
During the Q&A portion of this panel, I stood up to give a suggestion. I don't think I communicated it well enough then, but thankfully, a few others who went after me did. My suggestion was, in essence, for writers and publishers to connect to the vast numbers of Filipino readers, especially through social media, because these readers are the markets for their books and they can be a powerful force to help promote Filipino literature. Also, to attract more readers, I think there must be a great variety of reading material out there and that each type receives its own just marketing. A lot of people like genre fiction or YA, but get so very little of it from local publishers. There are also people who like literary novels, but sometimes the Filipino literary novel suffers from a lack of marketing.
One way toward bridging this gap between the readers and the writers or publishers is to communicate via the social media venues that a lot of readers populate today. Carl Javier, indie publisher and writer of The Kobayashi Maru of Love, also mentioned that things are changing and publishers have to "get with the program."
 |
| Me asking a question. (Photo source: NBDB) |
I am neither a writer nor publisher. Just a reader. But I heartily agree. I am proudly part of a Filipino reading community, as a book club member, as a book blogger. There's so much energy here that others are taking advantage of. Why not the local authors/publishers?
There was an interesting panel on Intertextuality and Plagiarism with Sarge Lacuesta, Carl Javier, Angelo Suarez. The issue of plagiarism, of course, is very timely, given recent events among the academe and the Supreme Court. Thing is, I had fun during this panel just watching the interplay among the speakers. They were friends and they were joshing each other. What's not to like? Bottom line, though: Sarge says that, with a bestselling novel, even if it is derivative, you can't argue with its success. Carl has no problem with mash-ups, while Gelo thinks that the decontextualization is the art itself and not the product. Bottom line: intertextuality exists and so does plagiarism. Where the line is drawn, though, is yet unsettled.
I attended the talk on The Importance of Literary Agents and How to Get One, with Mita Kapur and Jayapriya Vasudevan, out of curiosity. I know that literary agents are a requisite for writers who want to get published in the US, UK, and in other countries, but not here in the Philippines. I wanted to know whether the local industry was looking towards this already. I found the two ladies extremely charming as they explained what a literary agent does and how to get one. I don't know, though, whether there'll be an upsurge of local literary agents now. But if there is, that is one interesting job.
On the second day, I made sure to attend the panel on How to Market Literary Titles with Rino Balatbat and the two Indian ladies previously mentioned. Fantastic suggestions on marketing were given, but essentially, the panelists said that the author is the best marketer for the book. The author must take a more active part in making his book visible.
 |
| Some of the speakers with NBDB officers. From L-R, Christopher Cheng, agent Jayapriya Vasudevan, Vikas Swarup, agent and writer Mita Kapur, NBDB Chairman Dennis Gonzales, NBDB Exec. Dir. Andrea Pasion-Flores. (Photo source: NBDB) |
During this session, too, I was able to ask about online marketing and how effective it really is. For instance, do the website hits really translate to more sales? I had to ask the question because from my perspective and perhaps from the perspective, too, of fellow book bloggers or readers who are active in sites like Shelfari, Goodreads, LibraryThing, even Twitter, marketing efforts of authors, publishers, and publicity from fellow readers seems to be very effective in getting the word out and influencing us to buy those books. But I wanted to know if sales figures show that it really is effective. Mr. Balatbat, Random House Sales Director for Asia, said that, currently, it's hard to quantify exactly how many sales were influenced by online presence or social media activity, but they are paying close attention to it because it's a vast market, albeit fairly new.
I also took the opportunity to thank Mr. Balatbat for sponsoring our NYRB Reading Week. Book geek that I am, I think I gave a little whoop when he gave me several book catalogs from different publishers, like NYRB, Knopf, and Random House.
The last two panels I went to were How to teach literature to Young Adults with Mailin Paterno-Locsin and Anna Rodriguez and How to make book trailers with Christopher Cheng. As a former high school English teacher, I loved the ideas presented by Ms. Locsin and Ms. Rodriguez. They were terrifically in line with teaching for understanding, which is my other passion. And Christopher Cheng was an entertaining and energetic speaker, who showed the crowd how even a non-tech-oriented person can actually produce his or her own book trailer with just his trusty Mac. Moreover, he read from his upcoming book, Sounds Spooky, which I will definitely get for my kids. I wonder, though, if my kids will get a chance to hear him read in person. He's a fantastic reader.
 |
| Chris Cheng reading from Sounds Spooky. Lovely book and awesome reading. (Photo source: NBDB) |
Unfortunately, I had to go do a personal errand earlier in the day, so I missed the session on Writing Online with Carl Javier, Luis Katigbak, and Marne Kilates, moderated by none other than fellow book blogger, Tarie Sabido. Tarie tells me, though, that it was very successful and informative for those beginning with online writing and marketing.
I also missed sessions with Vikas Swarup, author of Q & A, on which the movie Slumdog Millionaire was based and Tara FT Sering, Filipino chick-lit author, whom several Filipino book bloggers I know have read.
As I said, the festival was a high for me, mostly because it was a venue for this reader to interact with those writers and publishers. In the future, I hope and believe that, in similar festivals and conferences, more readers will have the same opportunity to interact with the writing and publishing community and say their own piece as readers. After all, I think the readers now are more than just a passive target market. If we look around, readers are increasingly becoming participants to the whole book publishing and promotion industry.
Comments
See you on the Christmas party. And will you go to Libreria for the BM party?