Focus
http://www.bworldonline.com/Weekender042409/main.php?id=focus2
BY JEFFREY O. VALISNO, Senior Reporter
Romantic tie-up
When the Filipino romance pocketbook line Precious Hearts Romances started in 1991, it started with just 50 copies of one title. The pocketbook's publisher, Segundo Matias, Jr. of the publishing company Precious Pages Corp., made the delivery himself to an outlet in the Ever-Gotesco Grand Central Mall in Kalookan City. "In three days, all the 50 copies sold out," Mr. Matias told BusinessWorld in an interview last Wednesday. "That is when we knew we had something big on our hands," he said.
Now, the Precious Hearts Romances line of pocketbooks has more than 6,000 titles, with more than 30 million copies sold to date, making it one of the most successful Filipino romance novel series.
And very soon its stories will be told on the small screen.
The novels are sold not only in the publishing company's 16 stand-alone stores in SM Malls nationwide, as well as in most branches of National Book Store, but also in major cities around the world which have a large concentration of Filipino migrant workers, including Hong Kong and Singapore.
From just four titles per month, Precious Hearts Romances now releases 40-60 titles per month. All are eagerly awaited by their avid readers, predominantly females.
Ask Mr. Matias what made Precious Hearts Romances a hit, and he will say it is about the quality of the stories they select for publication. "We strive to come up with pocketbooks that provides the right emotion to the readers. The stories are thrilling, romantic, and heart-warming," he said in Filipino.
Edith Garcia, Precious Hearts Romances editor-in-chief, explained the formula of local romance novels. "Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl again," she told BusinessWorld in an interview. "All romance novels basically follow this same formula. It is what happens in between-the details, the creative exposition and characterization that sets great novels like ours apart from the rest," she added.
Ms. Garcia said Precious Hearts Romances is very strict in approving manuscripts for publication. Vulgarity, and profanity is strictly prohibited even under the guise of creativity, she said. "Our stories can be naughty at times, but never vulgar," she said. She added that as the editor-in-chief, she is always on the look out for plagiarism, since there are those who submit manuscripts based on Mills and Boon, or Harelequin Romance novels.
Writers whose stories get pass the scrutiny of Ms. Garcia (and her team of 10 female editors) are rewarded handsomely. Mr. Matias said Precious Hearts Romances attract the best writers because it is known for paying well. New writers receive between P6,000-P7,000 per approved manuscript, while more established writers, as well as Precious Hearts Romances exclusive writers, get as much as P20,000.
The standard 128-page Precious Hearts Romances paperback costs P37 each. Special editions cost as much as P109 each. These seem pricey, compared to the other Filipino romance pocketbooks available in wet markets, which are available for as little as P12 each. "We learned that the manuscripts that we reject get published by other companies and sold for P12," she said. Ms. Garcia, however, discourages readers from buying the cheaper pocketbooks. "Have you seen them? They are full of typographical errors!" she said.
Mr. Matias said most of romance novel writers are females, with male writers adapting female pseudonyms. "We tried before to introduce novels with male writers, but readers just do not buy them," he said. "I guess it is because most of our readers are female, and they think they could identify better with a novel written by a female," he added.
He said among the best-selling authors of Precious Hearts Romances is Martha Cecilia. Ms. Garcia said that among their current writers, two are males writing under female pseudonyms.
"Sometimes kasi, there are things that men find corny, but those things are actually the things that women like," Ms. Garcia said. "Our male writers, perhaps, are very attuned to their feminine side [so] that they understand what women want, and how women think," she added.
Ms. Garcia said that based on a survey they recently conducted among their readers, more than 90% are females. "There are also males who read our romance novels, probably because they want to get some tips on how to deal with women," she said.
She added that 56% of the readers of Precious Hearts Romances are professionals, dispelling perceptions that Filipino pocket books are only for the less educated. "Our readers are nurses, bank tellers, office employees, OFWs," she said.
Because of their readership, Ms. Garcia said Precious Hearts Romances are written with the perspective of the female heroine. And of course, a happy ending is a requirement. "It will not be a romance novel without a happy ending," she said.
The popularity of Precious Hearts Romances did not go unnoticed - media giant ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. is translating the stories for TV.
Laurenti M. Dyogi, ABS-CBN business unit head, explained that he first came to know Precious Hearts Romances last year when he got hold of one pocketbook while he was in Europe for auditions for season 2 of the TV show Pinoy Big Brother.
"That is when I discovered that the pocketbooks are very interesting. They have stories that are very Pinoy," he said in a recent press conference.
Immediately after he returned from Europe, he broached the idea to ABS-CBN executives. After the idea got the green light, Mr. Dyogi began negotiations with Mr. Matias, who previously worked for ABS-CBN as a writer.
"We were asked before to have our stories featured in a TV show, but we declined before because those behind the production did not want to read the books. They just want a synopsis from us," Mr. Matias explained. "That is not the case with Direk Lauren [Mr. Dyogi.] He really made sure that those involved in the production will read the books so they would understand the stories better," he added.
The TV show Precious Hearts Romances Presents will premiere on May 4, 3:30 p.m. on ABS-CBN Channel 2. The program will take over the time slot of the drama series Pieta, which will end on May 1.
For its first offering, Precious Hearts Romances Presents will feature The Bud Brothers series of pocketbooks, written by best-selling romance author Rose Tan. It is about eight college fraternity brothers who put up a business, the Bud Brothers Flower Farm, and the quirky yet gorgeous women these men fall for.
"Romance readers can expect the same flavor of fun and romance they've read in the pocketbooks to be translated on screen," Mr. Dyogi said.
To ensure the success of the new TV show, ABS-CBN has tapped top-notch directors Jerry Lopez-Sineneng, and Cathy Garcia-Molina. Ace scriptwriters Mel Mendoza-del Rosario, Michiko Yamamoto, and Jose Javier Reyes were selected to make the pocketbook stories come alive on TV. Chosen to appear on The Bud Brother series are ABS-CBN's hottest stars including Jake Cuenca, Cristine Reyes, John Pratts, and Mariel Rodriguez. "We want afternoon TV viewing to be light and romantic, not overly dramatic," Mr. Dyogi said.
April 25, 2009
The Romantic movement
http://www.bworldonline.com/Weekender042409/main.php?id=focus1
As of 2007,67% of Filipinos read the Bible, 33% (up from 26% in 2001) romance paperbacks, 28% cookbooks, 26% comic books, and 20% other religious or inspirational work. Romances continue to enjoy the patronage of a devoted public (pegged by one publisher from age 13-50).
Love sells
"Romances are the bestsellers," Anvil Publishing Inc. assistant general manager and publishing manager Karina A. Bolasco told BusinessWorld at the sidelines of a book launch last February -- echoing an article she wrote, "Emerging Trends in Philippine Publishing" (BookWatch, December 2004), wherein she stated that romance novels sell the most number of units next to textbooks.
At the time, around 20 romance novel titles were being produced in the country each month, with 20,000 copies per title, generating a monthly gross of P14 million. These days, production is deemed lower, with some publishers diversifying their product line, but insiders still refer to the romance novel as the "backbone" of the publishing industry.
Bookware Publishing Corp. alone has a regular target of 12 titles, but releases an average of eight titles, with 12 copies per title, amounting to 96 units in a month (or 96 titles, 144 copies, and 1,152 units per year). Also, they sometimes make reprints, dub-bed "Bestsellers" of their My Special Valentine series, which placed no. 1 (in-house) in terms of sales. Not too shabby, considering that an average of only around 5,000 titles each year (5,518 in 2007, 5,713 in 2006, 5,429 in 2005, and 5,139 in 2004) are issued an ISBN number as monitored by the Philippine National Library.
Employees of National Bookstore charged with purchasing books confirmed in an official e-mail to BusinessWorld that "absolutely the romance genre, consistently, has been a significant contributor to the overall sales for Fiction & Literature, both in terms of sales quantity and [revenue] amount."
In general, almost half of the sales of locally published titles under Fiction & Literature are either Tagalog romances or chick lit (also referred to as "chic lit") novels by local authors in English. For imported titles, it's the bestselling sub-category next to general fiction and the literary classics. Notably, local romance novels (both in English and Filipino) sell about five times more in quantity than imported romance novels, but total sales amount is almost equal at National Bookstore.
Popularity contest
Ms. Bolasco referred to romances as "soap on print, the same kind that fills up television primetime" -- which underscores how popular and addicting they can be. It also explains why there have been book and television tie-ins in the past, as in the case of PSICOM Publishing Inc.'s experiment with GMA's Love to Love series (TV to books), and the upcoming partnership between ABS-CBN and the Precious Hearts Romances line of pocketbook romances by Precious Pages Corp. (books to TV) [see related story.]
Martha Cecilia, one "best-selling author" -- so it says on the covers -- for Precious Hearts Romances, has a style of writing that apparently ranks with those of Gilda Olvidado and her contemporaries, whose novels were turned into movies during their heyday in the early 1990s. Hang out at the National Bookstore Tagalog romance section and a helpful employee will tell you that the author produces several connected storylines in a series, which readers can summarize easily. The language is so colloquial that you can use whole pages of dialogue in real-life conversations, and the plots may be predictable but are said to have catching twists.
Some readers prefer romance novels that are less dramatic, among them Francia Ramos, a 42-year-old call center agent who spends her free time browsing the bookstore each week in search of the latest from Camilla, another best-selling author for Precious Hearts Romances, distinguished for novels with a more comedic bent. Ms. Ramos deems her literary forays into romance as stress release, and so wants light fare, a break from the mystery/espionage of Sydney Sheldon and John Grisham. "It's like a feel-good movie for me," she told BusinessWorld.
An avid reader since she was 12, she confesses to having grown up reading Sweet Valley and Sweet Dreams romances, and moving on to the likes of Jude Deveraux and Danielle Steele. She still buys romance books twice a month on payday; weighing in favor of Tagalog romances is that they're shorter and can be read in one sitting, which is handy for an agent who doesn't get enough sleep. They're also cheaper than the rest.
Pay-per-read
Of all the come-ons, retail price is the topmost concern, according to National Bookstore.
Bookware editor Malou Medina, in an e-mail to BusinessWorld, likewise said, "I could probably attribute [popularity] to the low price-point of our books and its ability to entertain greatly a number of Filipinos here and abroad. Because let's face it, Tagalog Romance novels are meant to entertain. It's a form of escape."
A cursory canvassing will show that most foreign titles, whether chick lit, romance or general fiction, are worth over P300-P500 and run up to roughly the same number of pages of over 300-500. In comparison, Precious Hearts Romances range from P37 for an average of 120 pages to a special edition selling at P75 for over P250 pages. (These are so popular that they're also being distributed in Hong Kong.) Bookware's My Special Valentine series of books are even cheaper and shorter, sold at a flat P29 for 96-98 pages on average.
Publishers are split on the question of whether a romance originally written in English and translated to Tagalog will be as well-received by the audience of Tagalog romance novels; some say it will work just as well because romance is a universal language, others that the target market won't possibly be able to relate.
According to the NBDB-commissioned readership surveys, Filipino and English are the two main preferred languages of readers; however, there are twice as many readers who prefer to read in Filipino than those who prefer to read in English. Home-grown romance novels are mostly written in Filipino, which the late BusinessWorld columnist Edilberto N. Alegre lauded for its wealth of cultural expressions.
Focus
BY JOHANNA D. POBLETE, Reporter
The Romantic movement
There's a reason why Rizal spiced his subversive novels with a doomed love affair between an ilustrado and a mestiza; a touch of romance is just the trick to hook the reading public.
Filipinos are Romantic. In 2001, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey documented that more Filipino respondents, compared to Americans (or 84% vs. 74%), professed belief in a "one true love." In 2006, another survey revealed that the Filipino majority (70% ), across all socioeconomic classes, believe that "love is blind." Those beliefs are often used as theatrical and literary motifs.
Not surprisingly, romance novels are the second most commonly read books by adult Filipinos. Nationwide SWS surveys on book readership, reading attitudes and reading preferences commissioned in 2003 and 2007 by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) noted how respondents in the 18-24 age bracket, also the biggest reading segment, favored romance novels, despite a decline in total readership (2%) in the interval.
BY JOHANNA D. POBLETE, Reporter
The Romantic movement
There's a reason why Rizal spiced his subversive novels with a doomed love affair between an ilustrado and a mestiza; a touch of romance is just the trick to hook the reading public.
Filipinos are Romantic. In 2001, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey documented that more Filipino respondents, compared to Americans (or 84% vs. 74%), professed belief in a "one true love." In 2006, another survey revealed that the Filipino majority (70% ), across all socioeconomic classes, believe that "love is blind." Those beliefs are often used as theatrical and literary motifs.
Not surprisingly, romance novels are the second most commonly read books by adult Filipinos. Nationwide SWS surveys on book readership, reading attitudes and reading preferences commissioned in 2003 and 2007 by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) noted how respondents in the 18-24 age bracket, also the biggest reading segment, favored romance novels, despite a decline in total readership (2%) in the interval.
-- JONATHAN L. CELLONA
As of 2007,67% of Filipinos read the Bible, 33% (up from 26% in 2001) romance paperbacks, 28% cookbooks, 26% comic books, and 20% other religious or inspirational work. Romances continue to enjoy the patronage of a devoted public (pegged by one publisher from age 13-50).
Love sells
"Romances are the bestsellers," Anvil Publishing Inc. assistant general manager and publishing manager Karina A. Bolasco told BusinessWorld at the sidelines of a book launch last February -- echoing an article she wrote, "Emerging Trends in Philippine Publishing" (BookWatch, December 2004), wherein she stated that romance novels sell the most number of units next to textbooks.
At the time, around 20 romance novel titles were being produced in the country each month, with 20,000 copies per title, generating a monthly gross of P14 million. These days, production is deemed lower, with some publishers diversifying their product line, but insiders still refer to the romance novel as the "backbone" of the publishing industry.
Bookware Publishing Corp. alone has a regular target of 12 titles, but releases an average of eight titles, with 12 copies per title, amounting to 96 units in a month (or 96 titles, 144 copies, and 1,152 units per year). Also, they sometimes make reprints, dub-bed "Bestsellers" of their My Special Valentine series, which placed no. 1 (in-house) in terms of sales. Not too shabby, considering that an average of only around 5,000 titles each year (5,518 in 2007, 5,713 in 2006, 5,429 in 2005, and 5,139 in 2004) are issued an ISBN number as monitored by the Philippine National Library.
Employees of National Bookstore charged with purchasing books confirmed in an official e-mail to BusinessWorld that "absolutely the romance genre, consistently, has been a significant contributor to the overall sales for Fiction & Literature, both in terms of sales quantity and [revenue] amount."
In general, almost half of the sales of locally published titles under Fiction & Literature are either Tagalog romances or chick lit (also referred to as "chic lit") novels by local authors in English. For imported titles, it's the bestselling sub-category next to general fiction and the literary classics. Notably, local romance novels (both in English and Filipino) sell about five times more in quantity than imported romance novels, but total sales amount is almost equal at National Bookstore.
Popularity contest
Ms. Bolasco referred to romances as "soap on print, the same kind that fills up television primetime" -- which underscores how popular and addicting they can be. It also explains why there have been book and television tie-ins in the past, as in the case of PSICOM Publishing Inc.'s experiment with GMA's Love to Love series (TV to books), and the upcoming partnership between ABS-CBN and the Precious Hearts Romances line of pocketbook romances by Precious Pages Corp. (books to TV) [see related story.]
Martha Cecilia, one "best-selling author" -- so it says on the covers -- for Precious Hearts Romances, has a style of writing that apparently ranks with those of Gilda Olvidado and her contemporaries, whose novels were turned into movies during their heyday in the early 1990s. Hang out at the National Bookstore Tagalog romance section and a helpful employee will tell you that the author produces several connected storylines in a series, which readers can summarize easily. The language is so colloquial that you can use whole pages of dialogue in real-life conversations, and the plots may be predictable but are said to have catching twists.
Some readers prefer romance novels that are less dramatic, among them Francia Ramos, a 42-year-old call center agent who spends her free time browsing the bookstore each week in search of the latest from Camilla, another best-selling author for Precious Hearts Romances, distinguished for novels with a more comedic bent. Ms. Ramos deems her literary forays into romance as stress release, and so wants light fare, a break from the mystery/espionage of Sydney Sheldon and John Grisham. "It's like a feel-good movie for me," she told BusinessWorld.
An avid reader since she was 12, she confesses to having grown up reading Sweet Valley and Sweet Dreams romances, and moving on to the likes of Jude Deveraux and Danielle Steele. She still buys romance books twice a month on payday; weighing in favor of Tagalog romances is that they're shorter and can be read in one sitting, which is handy for an agent who doesn't get enough sleep. They're also cheaper than the rest.
Pay-per-read
Of all the come-ons, retail price is the topmost concern, according to National Bookstore.
Bookware editor Malou Medina, in an e-mail to BusinessWorld, likewise said, "I could probably attribute [popularity] to the low price-point of our books and its ability to entertain greatly a number of Filipinos here and abroad. Because let's face it, Tagalog Romance novels are meant to entertain. It's a form of escape."
A cursory canvassing will show that most foreign titles, whether chick lit, romance or general fiction, are worth over P300-P500 and run up to roughly the same number of pages of over 300-500. In comparison, Precious Hearts Romances range from P37 for an average of 120 pages to a special edition selling at P75 for over P250 pages. (These are so popular that they're also being distributed in Hong Kong.) Bookware's My Special Valentine series of books are even cheaper and shorter, sold at a flat P29 for 96-98 pages on average.
Publishers are split on the question of whether a romance originally written in English and translated to Tagalog will be as well-received by the audience of Tagalog romance novels; some say it will work just as well because romance is a universal language, others that the target market won't possibly be able to relate.
According to the NBDB-commissioned readership surveys, Filipino and English are the two main preferred languages of readers; however, there are twice as many readers who prefer to read in Filipino than those who prefer to read in English. Home-grown romance novels are mostly written in Filipino, which the late BusinessWorld columnist Edilberto N. Alegre lauded for its wealth of cultural expressions.
-- JONATHAN L. CELLONA
Now, these also have English titles and a smattering of dialogue in English. Primary patrons are young women from a lower economic bracket.
"Its affordability, its storylines, its creator (e.g. a best-selling author's particular writing style), and its ‘pa-tweetums' (cutesy) language" add to the popularity of romances, said Arnel N. Gabriel, Publisher of PSICOM Publishing Inc. "If the setting is in the barrio/province -- it's Tagalog. If the setting is in some coffee shop in Eastwood or Greenbelt -- definitely English."
"Those in the middle, upper bracket are also reading local romance books. But these are books written mostly in English with white, thick paper and with a cute drawing on its cover. The storylines are mostly about yuppies meeting their partners in the urban jungle. That's chick lit. They find those Tagalog romance novels printed on newsprint paper as ‘bakya' (tacky)," he added.
The non-Tagalog romances, love/dating advice books and even the Love to Love series from PSICOM have a more glitzy look to them, with glossier paper and better cover art, and cost P85-P150. Likewise, Summit Books' chick lit and teen lit novels have a trademark streamlined look, and usually cost P150. These novels are mostly targeted to ABC markets, and particularly young, single women.
Chick lit is defined by Mr. Gabriel as "a more diverse lifestyle for a young woman -- shopping, dating, kikay, all done with a bit of humor." Romance he sums up as "boy meets girl or just vice-versa." Speaking only for his publishing company, he said that chick lit is an emerging trend.
"Our Stupid Love series has been a bestseller wherein readers tell their love stories and problems and we try to give them advice on what to do. Blogs turned into books have also become successful wherein real bloggers try to tell all their love/sex experiences ( klitorika.com and jaypanti.blogspot.com)."
Next generation romance?
"Romance as a genre will never slack, although it's possible for their current medium to abate and evolve. At present, there are some publishers venturing towards e-romances. Since online novels have no restrictions, writers are given enough license on what types of erotic content can be included in their story," noted our friends from National Bookstore.
Not surprisingly, erotic content is a selling point for adult Romantic fiction; books with racy titles, said Bookware associate editor Apple Masallo, such as One Night Stand, actually sell better than the wholesome titles, never mind what's on the cover. There's a streak of conservatism in the local fare, although Mr. Gabriel said that if it's for a mature audience, anything sexual is allowed.
National Bookstore also ventured that even romances published two to three decades past already contained graphic and detailed sexual content, which contributes to salability. Still, the bookstore restricts itself from bringing in romances portraying acts that are still considered taboo, such as pedophilia, incest and bestiality.
There is also a movement towards more wholesome chick/teen lit. Since these are lumped together as light fiction catering to the same audience, they are competing more and more with romances, albeit the tendency in the former is to provide more of thrill (kilig) than titillation.
"Most off the chick lit books are romance novels also... I don't really know what the difference is. Chick lit is lighter, funnier, more entertaining, and it's very current, it has all these pop culture references," said Marla Miniano, writer of the three-part Every Girl's Guide series by Summit Books and assistant literary editor for Candy magazine, in a phone interview with BusinessWorld.
"Summit Books launched the first book in 2005, The Breakup Diaries... It's easy to read, it's fun. We publish magazines so we can't really go too far from that. It's something that people can pick up in their spare time and finish in a few hours on weekends at the beach. The word count I'm given is 25,000," she said. New titles are being released this month again, and the 23-year-old Ms. Miniano already has ideas brewing for another novel.
Her three published novels feature three distinct characters that are faithful to type nonetheless - the "super-good girl," the "smart, quirky girl," and in the latest book, the "party girl" as an anti-heroine that appeared in the first two books -- paired with a distinct set of boys. Developing relationships are not just Romantic but also filial, with the family playing a big role. They're wholesome books, even the most recently launched Every Girl's Guide to Flings, the last of the series with its clever tagline "Because even bad girls fall in love," does not contain anything explicit.
What got Ms. Miniano into writing was the realization that there was a dearth of teen-appropriate books in the young adult shelves, particularly locally published ones with characters that young Filipinas "can easily relate to and learn from." She made a point of accompanying her younger sister and screening the books first, only to find a lot of "sex and hooking up." This way, shes able to provide a few books deemed wholesome while addressing the sexual curiosity and emotional issues of young girls.
"In general, teens these days are growing up faster, do things earlier, party and meet boys at a very early age. I'm not sure if its because of media or if media is a reflection of what is going on. Because they are already living that lifestyle, if you give them a book that doesn't talk about boys and dating, they're not interested, they're not entertained...
"Local teens have never had a venue to express themselves. They were always too young to be taken seriously. But these days they're speaking up more (through blogs, technology), and we're noticing them better. It's only now that we're seeing how different they are from children, and we're realizing the need to give them reading material that's distinctly their own."
Makeover
As for the grownups? They're also chartering new territory via experiments with the Romantic formula. Some aren't as successful as expected, as in the case of PSICOM's Love to Love series adaptation, and Bookware's brief dabbling in historical romance. Yet they forge on.
"We try our best not be stagnant with our themes or plots. We encourage our writers to develop new and interesting scenes and explore different characters and storylines. We no longer read about just the typical Boss-Secretary or Artista-Fan romance or damsel-in-distress kind of plot. Readers now want their heroines to be strong, fiery, and aggressive in achieving what they want and they also want their heroes to be like that as well," said Ms. Medina.
As early as 2004, Ms. Bolasco had already mentioned in her article the importance of "books different groups of people will want to read and are accessible to them -- are there right where people are, are reasonably priced, and are enjoyable reads" in that they are well-written and well-designed. In her opinion, these should be "books not above people's heads but those which catch their fancy or captivate their imagination because they are useful, interesting, entertaining and profoundly satisfying, or a combination of all."
Romances are no different in their aims, but competition is fierce. Mr. Gabriel believes that the popularity of romance novels has started its downtrend as reflected by lower sales compared to the previous years, whereas the jokebooks, cookbooks, and horror books are still consistent bestsellers, along with the comics/manga genre in the PSICOM portfolio. Nevertheless he encourages romance writing.
"It's getting the Filipinos into the reading habit... It's just sad that some sectors put down Tagalog romance writers. Institutions are giving more priorities to university-bred writers whose only experience in writing is to please their writing professors -- not in pleasing the buying Filipino market. I hope that they can start to write to please the average Filipino reader, learn their preferences and what they want to read -- and become best-selling authors themselves," he said.
Ms. Miniano believes romance is here to stay. "I don't think [that the other genres are now stronger], even sci-fi and historic novels, they all have a touch of romance, almost all movies have a love story within. It will never go out of style, people like reading of love and talking about love," she said.
"Its affordability, its storylines, its creator (e.g. a best-selling author's particular writing style), and its ‘pa-tweetums' (cutesy) language" add to the popularity of romances, said Arnel N. Gabriel, Publisher of PSICOM Publishing Inc. "If the setting is in the barrio/province -- it's Tagalog. If the setting is in some coffee shop in Eastwood or Greenbelt -- definitely English."
"Those in the middle, upper bracket are also reading local romance books. But these are books written mostly in English with white, thick paper and with a cute drawing on its cover. The storylines are mostly about yuppies meeting their partners in the urban jungle. That's chick lit. They find those Tagalog romance novels printed on newsprint paper as ‘bakya' (tacky)," he added.
The non-Tagalog romances, love/dating advice books and even the Love to Love series from PSICOM have a more glitzy look to them, with glossier paper and better cover art, and cost P85-P150. Likewise, Summit Books' chick lit and teen lit novels have a trademark streamlined look, and usually cost P150. These novels are mostly targeted to ABC markets, and particularly young, single women.
Chick lit is defined by Mr. Gabriel as "a more diverse lifestyle for a young woman -- shopping, dating, kikay, all done with a bit of humor." Romance he sums up as "boy meets girl or just vice-versa." Speaking only for his publishing company, he said that chick lit is an emerging trend.
"Our Stupid Love series has been a bestseller wherein readers tell their love stories and problems and we try to give them advice on what to do. Blogs turned into books have also become successful wherein real bloggers try to tell all their love/sex experiences ( klitorika.com and jaypanti.blogspot.com)."
Next generation romance?
"Romance as a genre will never slack, although it's possible for their current medium to abate and evolve. At present, there are some publishers venturing towards e-romances. Since online novels have no restrictions, writers are given enough license on what types of erotic content can be included in their story," noted our friends from National Bookstore.
Not surprisingly, erotic content is a selling point for adult Romantic fiction; books with racy titles, said Bookware associate editor Apple Masallo, such as One Night Stand, actually sell better than the wholesome titles, never mind what's on the cover. There's a streak of conservatism in the local fare, although Mr. Gabriel said that if it's for a mature audience, anything sexual is allowed.
National Bookstore also ventured that even romances published two to three decades past already contained graphic and detailed sexual content, which contributes to salability. Still, the bookstore restricts itself from bringing in romances portraying acts that are still considered taboo, such as pedophilia, incest and bestiality.
There is also a movement towards more wholesome chick/teen lit. Since these are lumped together as light fiction catering to the same audience, they are competing more and more with romances, albeit the tendency in the former is to provide more of thrill (kilig) than titillation.
"Most off the chick lit books are romance novels also... I don't really know what the difference is. Chick lit is lighter, funnier, more entertaining, and it's very current, it has all these pop culture references," said Marla Miniano, writer of the three-part Every Girl's Guide series by Summit Books and assistant literary editor for Candy magazine, in a phone interview with BusinessWorld.
"Summit Books launched the first book in 2005, The Breakup Diaries... It's easy to read, it's fun. We publish magazines so we can't really go too far from that. It's something that people can pick up in their spare time and finish in a few hours on weekends at the beach. The word count I'm given is 25,000," she said. New titles are being released this month again, and the 23-year-old Ms. Miniano already has ideas brewing for another novel.
Her three published novels feature three distinct characters that are faithful to type nonetheless - the "super-good girl," the "smart, quirky girl," and in the latest book, the "party girl" as an anti-heroine that appeared in the first two books -- paired with a distinct set of boys. Developing relationships are not just Romantic but also filial, with the family playing a big role. They're wholesome books, even the most recently launched Every Girl's Guide to Flings, the last of the series with its clever tagline "Because even bad girls fall in love," does not contain anything explicit.
What got Ms. Miniano into writing was the realization that there was a dearth of teen-appropriate books in the young adult shelves, particularly locally published ones with characters that young Filipinas "can easily relate to and learn from." She made a point of accompanying her younger sister and screening the books first, only to find a lot of "sex and hooking up." This way, shes able to provide a few books deemed wholesome while addressing the sexual curiosity and emotional issues of young girls.
"In general, teens these days are growing up faster, do things earlier, party and meet boys at a very early age. I'm not sure if its because of media or if media is a reflection of what is going on. Because they are already living that lifestyle, if you give them a book that doesn't talk about boys and dating, they're not interested, they're not entertained...
"Local teens have never had a venue to express themselves. They were always too young to be taken seriously. But these days they're speaking up more (through blogs, technology), and we're noticing them better. It's only now that we're seeing how different they are from children, and we're realizing the need to give them reading material that's distinctly their own."
Makeover
As for the grownups? They're also chartering new territory via experiments with the Romantic formula. Some aren't as successful as expected, as in the case of PSICOM's Love to Love series adaptation, and Bookware's brief dabbling in historical romance. Yet they forge on.
"We try our best not be stagnant with our themes or plots. We encourage our writers to develop new and interesting scenes and explore different characters and storylines. We no longer read about just the typical Boss-Secretary or Artista-Fan romance or damsel-in-distress kind of plot. Readers now want their heroines to be strong, fiery, and aggressive in achieving what they want and they also want their heroes to be like that as well," said Ms. Medina.
As early as 2004, Ms. Bolasco had already mentioned in her article the importance of "books different groups of people will want to read and are accessible to them -- are there right where people are, are reasonably priced, and are enjoyable reads" in that they are well-written and well-designed. In her opinion, these should be "books not above people's heads but those which catch their fancy or captivate their imagination because they are useful, interesting, entertaining and profoundly satisfying, or a combination of all."
Romances are no different in their aims, but competition is fierce. Mr. Gabriel believes that the popularity of romance novels has started its downtrend as reflected by lower sales compared to the previous years, whereas the jokebooks, cookbooks, and horror books are still consistent bestsellers, along with the comics/manga genre in the PSICOM portfolio. Nevertheless he encourages romance writing.
"It's getting the Filipinos into the reading habit... It's just sad that some sectors put down Tagalog romance writers. Institutions are giving more priorities to university-bred writers whose only experience in writing is to please their writing professors -- not in pleasing the buying Filipino market. I hope that they can start to write to please the average Filipino reader, learn their preferences and what they want to read -- and become best-selling authors themselves," he said.
Ms. Miniano believes romance is here to stay. "I don't think [that the other genres are now stronger], even sci-fi and historic novels, they all have a touch of romance, almost all movies have a love story within. It will never go out of style, people like reading of love and talking about love," she said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)