That Market! Market! moment (My self-publishing talk at Komiket BGC)

Last weekend, I gave a short talk about self-publishing at Komiket BGC as a representative of #RomanceClass. Yes, I had my Market! Market! moment. I’ve made it!

Anyway, thought I’d share the three quick self-publishing tips I mentioned during this talk. But first, an important note:

A lot of people still seem confused about the term self-publishing. I’ve seen people on the internet say “I’m a self-published author” and in the next sentence, say, “So-and-so is my publisher.” This is incorrect. When you SELF publish a book, that means YOU are The Boss of things. YOU are the publisher. YOU have the power to make all the decisions regarding the publishing of your book.

Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do EVERYTHING from editing to book cover design to marketing. You can hire people (or a company) to do that for you. These are services, and if you hire people or a company to do these things, they are simply providing a service. They are NOT your publisher.

Remember: You never have to pay a publisher to get your book published. An actual publisher pays you so they could acquire the rights to publish your book.

Now that that’s (hopefully) clear, here are my three tips!

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3 Takeaways from the Waiting in the Wings book tour

So… this is two months late, but I can’t not write about my amazing experience with Talk Bookish To Me, AKA the community of readers and content creators who organized the book tour for Waiting in the Wings.

Yup, I had another book tour this year! (Check out my BookLoverTitas collaboration for Connect the Hearts~)

I just figured that since I’m planning to release another book next year, I should reintroduce my backlist to new readers. So I reached out to Talk Bookish To Me for a collaboration, and they did a week-long feature for my theatre babies Erin, Ramon, and Pio on the first week of September.

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I remember having a Zoom meeting with some of the TBTM members and their admin, Emman, asking me: “What are your expectations from us?”

I was a little stumped. What did I expect nga ba? Honestly, the only thing I wanted out of this book tour is new readers who would be interested in my books, so I just told them to do whatever they wanted and to surprise me. 🙂

And surprise me, they did. For seven days, Avy, Obi, Shian, Ceej, Jesh, CL, Nyz, Mark, and Veron featured my book in various creative ways. I was so kilig! One of them even made me cry. *points to the post below*

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So yeah—here are my three takeaways from the Waiting in the Wings book tour with Talk Bookish To Me!
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Cover Reveal: Waiting in the Wings (special illustrated cover edition)

It’s here! It’s here! It’s heeeeeeere!

It’s cover reveal day, folks—and YES, I know. I’ve done this before. For this very book, in fact. The beauty of being a self-published author, folks: You can do whatever you want with your book, just because. And because I met an artist whose work I really liked and I just really wanted an illustrated cover for Waiting in the Wings, I did exactly that.

I wanted to capture a moment in the book that’s been sorta-kinda immortalized through a couple of live readings but couldn’t really capture in my 2024 photo cover. Figured illustration was the best way to do it, and I’m so, so happy because @rwiizo definitely delivered the feels~!

And so here it is, the special illustrated cover edition of Waiting in the Wings!

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It’s Pio Season!

Hey guys, it’s Leo Season…but also PIO SEASON!

Have you met my sweet, charming, flirtatious boy Pio Alvez? I heard he’s quite the ladies’ man, and he captures hearts just like that. Well, here’s your chance to meet him! Like Nobody’s Watching is on sale on Amazon for the whole month of August!

It’s all fun and games until someone catches feelings.

If there’s something Pio Alvez is good at, it’s pretending to be someone he’s not. On stage and on-screen, the actor has mastered the art of becoming the characters he plays, and his new role should be no different. After all, how difficult would it be to pretend to be smitten with a beautiful, intelligent go-getter like Audrey Alonzo?

Perhaps it’s more difficult pretending not to be.

Get the book here.

I’m also uploading a chapter a day on Wattpad so you’re going to be able to read it there for free. Check it out here.

The $1.99 promo and free version on Wattpad will be up until August 31, 2025.

Happy reading!

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Waiting in the Wings is having a special illustrated cover!

For a few weeks now, I have been working on this special project with a local artist named rwiizo, whom I met at Komiket Market! Market! in May. I was browsing through the many stalls at the event and was instantly taken by his art style. I asked him if he was open to handling cover commissions, and he said yes, so I followed him on his IG account and had a look at his body of work while I decided which book I wanted him to sprinkle his magic on.

And then I decided it should be Waiting in the Wings. Because why not?

(Because paboritong anak lol. WHO SAID THAT?!!?)

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