After the January KOMIKET event at Market! Market! a few months ago, I wrote a blog post about Why I like hand selling books. Now, here I am again, about to share with you some nakakakilig moments of the time we hand sold #RomanceClass books at the 2024 Philippine Book Festival.
Organized by the National Book Development Board, the Philippine Book Festival is a free event that aims to showcase Filipino talent through various types of published work. Just like last year, the World Trade Center (official venue of #PBF2024) was divided into four “realms”: Booktopia (fiction and non-fiction books), Komiks (comic books, graphic novels, zines, and art), Aral Aklat (textbooks), and KidLit (children’s books). Book and publishing industry-related balks and workshops also happen throughout the day, divided among the different spaces such as the Main Stage and the Creators’ Lab.
This year we were given the chance to represent Filipino romance the #RomanceClass way at our very own booth, and boy, was it fun!
What makes you kilig?
Something new that we incorporated to our booth setup were these cute boards that asked “What makes you kilig?” and displayed #RomanceClass book covers that fall under certain tropes. This was mostly inspired by cinema hallways that displayed movie posters under labels like Now Showing, Next Attraction, and Coming Soon.
On the first day of PBF2024, we were told there would be scopers from various schools who might inquire about our books, so Mina prepared a simple recommendation sheet for them with titles categorized for high school/senior high school students and college/grad school students. I displayed the same books on our “What makes you kilig?” board on that first day too.
In the days that followed, I decided to highlight friends-to-lovers and enemies-to-lovers books and got amusing reactions from people who were passing by. I remember a group of middle-aged school teachers pointing at the “Friends lang dapat, kaso nagka-feelings” sign and excitedly whipping their phones out to take pictures. Apparently, a co-teacher of theirs is in a similar predicament, and the photos they took were going straight to their group chat.
There were younger people too, who teased each other upon seeing the board, and we could only smile and laugh while they encouraged each other to buy certain titles that seemed to “fit” their current life situations.
Ano’ng hugot mo today?
I personally think “hugot” is a thing of the past, but I can’t deny how impactful a well-placed, emotionally charged line could be. While I was planning some type of gimmick for our booth, I decided I wanted something free that would encourage interaction with anyone who passed by. Hence, the hugot balls. (LOL)
People would come over, pick out a quote from the bowl and end up gasping, saying things like “Hala ang sakit!” or “Tinamaan ako ‘run ah!” Some would laugh, others would start playfully teasing each other, sometimes saying the quote they picked out was more relevant to their friend’s lovelife (or lack thereof). I remember one girl who liked the quote she pulled so much that she decided to put it on the back of her phone case.
Because the hugot lines were all actually lines from our books, we’ve also had people look for the books their quotes came from, and we were able to sell a few books this way. Some of them simply bought the quote stickers, and some walked away with our cards, promising to check out our website and other social media accounts. Whatever their response was, we had a lot of fun with this little gimmick that I’m already planning on doing it again at our next event.
Here’s an “Ano’ng hugot mo today?” reel featuring some of the best reactions we’ve received during the festival:
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Our love language is: KILIG
One of my favorite things about being designated tindera is being able to observe the people coming and going and browsing and buying. And while drafting this blog post I realized that I’ve seen the various love languages manifesting around us during PBF2024.
QUALITY TIME was when someone from the community took time out of their day to drop by the booth to help the designated tinderas out or simply cheer us on. At the booth, I was joined by fellow authors H. Bentham, Layla Tanjutco, Six de los Reyes, and Ronald Lim, while Suzette de Borja, Angeli E. Dumatol, Ines Bautista-Yao, and Brigitte Bautista dropped by on different days and stayed to chat for a little while. Even our printer, Ms. Joy Aspa of JMD Printing spent some time with us.
And when a pair or a group of people stop by our booth and stay for a while even if only one person was browsing our books…I’d say that was spending quality time with your companion/s, too.
Hugs and besos were given all around whenever someone familiar came to the booth, and that’s PHYSICAL TOUCH right there. One can also say that the way we carefully handle the books would be a manifestation of the love language. (Minsan kasi walang plastic yung iba, or sira na yung plastic, so kailangan mas ingatan. Hay oo nga pala, magpapadala pa ako ng memo! :P)
When my co-tinderas offered to buy me coffee or food at any point during the day—because sometimes people were browsing and I can’t leave my station, or I was just too tired to walk to the food stalls and stand in line—those were ACTS OF SERVICE. Bonus: On the last day of the event, Brij offered to drive us back to our AirB&B, which made the egress process much easier for Layla and myself.
On the last day of the event, someone came up to our booth and exclaimed, “I finally found you! Kayo lang ang pinunta ko rito!” Kinilig na ako no’n, but her WORDS OF AFFIRMATION didn’t stop there. Apparently, she’s read a bunch of our books, and while asking for more recommendations, she said she loved that #RomanceClass books were smartly written and never fail to pack a punch, even if the stories were relatively short. (She’s a Wattpad reader as well and was used to reading serialized fiction.) In the end, she went home with at least six new #RomanceClass titles.
Later in the day, she returned to the booth with a bunch of friends and told them: “Pick a book, it’s my treat.” Ahhhhh! GIVING GIFTS! Her friends weren’t the only one who received gifts, though. We also got them in the form of food and supplies.
Quick story: Days before the event, the black ink cartridge of my printer died and I was afraid that the new one I bought online wouldn’t be able to arrive on time. I then asked Ms. Joy if she could help print out our scoping flyers for PBF2024 and she immediately said yes. But when I asked about how much it would cost, she simply said she’d give it to us for free! She even brought us snacks on Thursday afternoon! Ms. Joy is an actual gift herself, if you ask me.
Speaking of snacks, Doc Angeli was able to sneak in a few snacks and brought it to our booth. Heh. We’re always down for snacks. (Bonus, I got a little gift from Doc Suzette too when she bought me SB19 stickers from a nearby booth, heh.)
We were five for five on love languages—no wonder we were all kilig!
More FUNecdotes!
- We enjoy it a lot when people recognize our book cover models. Yes, our friends from the local theatre and music scene prove to be quite the draw. (Oh, it’s Gab Pangilinan! That’s Gio Gahol! Isn’t that Vanya? Uy, si Fred Lo ba ‘to?) This last PBF, we sold What Kind of Day because Bibo Reyes was on the cover.
- It’s a complicated feeling when it’s US the people recognize. I remember Six looking confused when someone pointed to her and she thought she was being asked to get a book from the display. Turns out the person wanted to buy one of her books! (Buti na lang nag-restock siya, pero may mga naghanap ng Beginner’s Guide and we just told them to wait till September. Dun-dun-duuuun~)
- A young lady came up to our booth and asked for sapphic romances, so of course I immediately pointed to the Brigitte Bautista and Chi Yu Rodriguez titles. But then she asked for a “discreet” cover, or something that “hindi mahahalata ng nanay, if—” and she trailed off. She ended up buying a copy of Start Here, and bringing home a silent wish from me: May she never have to hide what she enjoys reading in the near future.
- Someone asked for “a book by Jay E. Tria” and my initial question was “which one?” She couldn’t remember the title, but had a bunch of Jay’s books on display, so it was easy to get her the book she wanted. It was the Blush Books edition of You Out of Nowhere. Extra note: She mentioned she had pre-ordered Jay’s Yes To You before it came out and I guessed she was from “Law School Twitter” (AKA the Kdrama, Law School). Confirmed. Ah, I love it when KDrama fans and romance fans find each other on the internet. 🙂
- We had a good laugh when someone picked up If the Dress Fits and asked if the cover models were married. (Hihi.) They are not, but they do look good together, don’t they?
I know I’m forgetting other notable stories from our Philippine Book Festival stint, but I swear to you there were SO MANY. A lot of them I’m filing away for future reference when we set up a table or booth at an event somewhere, and some I’ll keep in my heart for when I need to push myself to write more…because the work we do is outstanding, and very much needed. Because love and justice, you know? We need more of that in the world, even if only between the pages of a book.
