Mina V. Esguerra's Blog, page 22
October 16, 2018
September 18, 2018
FeelsFest2018 on October 6, Maybank Performing Arts Theater
The next romanceclass event, FeelsFest2018, will be on October 6 at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in BGC. Register at bit.ly/feelsfest2018. See you!
August 6, 2018
#romanceclass at Word Wonder, Century City Mall, Aug 31 to Sept 2, 2018
#romanceclass will be selling books at the Word Wonder bazaar at Century City Mall, from August 31 to September 2, 2018. See you!
July 30, 2018
#romanceclass community (2018 media kit)
If you’re a blogger, journalist, or just interested in #romanceclass community’s books, author activities and ongoing projects, here’s a media kit I’ve put together for meetings and presentations I’ve done this year. It specifically highlights newly released books, but there’s an extensive catalogue of over 100 books now at romanceclassbooks.com. The next romanceclass event is on October 6, and we’ll have time on that day for author interviews and book launch panels.
July 27, 2018
New #romanceclass lecture, 4Q 2018
Yes! Not doing another full class this year, but there will be a half-day lecture sometime after October 15. Classroom lecture in Manila, but with an FB Live so you don’t need to be in Manila. Free, but you’ll need to do assignments first to join. You’ll need to read and review/react to 5 #romanceclass books, 1 of them has to be a book I wrote.
Signup form and more details at bit.ly/rc-intro2018. Thanks!
July 22, 2018
Iris After the Incident (audiobook)
Narrated by Rachel Coates. Unabridged. 5 hours 19 mins.
Buy links: Gumroad (more soon)
Book description:
Which moment has defined your life so far?
Whether she likes it or not, Iris’s life has been divided into two: Before the Incident, and After the Incident. Something very private was made very public, and since then life has been about recovering from being shamed, discovering her true friends, and struggling to find a new normal.
Two years into this new life and she finally connects with a guy again. He lives in the apartment down the hall, he’s hot, and he doesn’t look at her that way. He doesn’t know what happened. But he also won’t give her his name, not right away—which has to mean he’s got something to hide too.
Iris wants to start over. Should she do that with the only person who will understand, or is this the same idiotic decision that got her in trouble in the first place?
Sample:
So…OMG we did this? Yes it’s unabridged audio of the entire book, the first for any of my novellas. (There’s a recording of short story All You Needed that I made for a friend but we won’t count that.) We’ve had Rachel Coates on the romanceclass podcast before and I knew I needed her for this project, if we were ever to do a full-length book. Rachel has read so many of my characters, and has actually performed as Iris before.
Rachel and Gio (Gahol) are always great together, but my judgment call for the audiobook was to go with one narrator. It’s a single character first-person POV story anyway, and as an audiobook reader/listener myself I prefer single narrator most of the time. But that’s a production decision, and you (the readers) get to decide if we made good choices.
If you’ve read this book before, some things may still pop out as new. Like, I laughed when I heard “Tita Ara” for the first time, because yeah, it’s possible. Rachel also decides to read a chapter that’s a series of increasingly vile internet comments as poetry, and I’m just…it’s my favorite. This is a steamy book by the way, so if you need content warnings for sex scenes, there are a few, and sex/kink is discussed in other chapters too.
Thank you for the requests over the years to do audio. It’s not easy, but now I’ve started, and I’ll figure out how to keep doing this.
July 20, 2018
Romance Giveaway
Giving away Kindle editions of these books! One book per winner.
To enter, email minavesguerra@gmail.com, subject line GIVEAWAY, and in the body of the email choose 3 from these titles up for giveaway:
North to You by Tif Marcelo
Grumpy Fake Boyfriend by Jackie Lau
Courtney Milan’s novella collection
Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole
A Night at the Mall by M. Hollis
Wanna Bet by Talia Hibbert
Fit by Rebekah Weatherspon
Previews embedded below, if you need a sample!
If you’ve been selected as winner, you’ll receive a Kindle gift one of your choices as an email reply. I’m going to try to give everyone a book they want. I will update this post and close the giveaway once all books have been claimed.
I hope you consider buying and reading all the books!
June 20, 2018
#romanceclass at IASPR 2018 Sydney
There will be a session on #romanceclass at this year’s conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, at Macquarie University in Sydney. Kat Mayo of Bookthingo and I will be talking about #romanceclass as a community producing, reading, and supporting books by Filipino authors.
Here’s background info on #romanceclass and 5 ways to support the community. Everything else about it is documented here on my author website, and the books are at romanceclassbooks.com.
I’ll try to post a summary of the conference, or at least tweet regularly while I’m there, but here are some thoughts on the session anyway since these are in my head right now.
On the agenda for the discussion:
1. The evolution of the community from a writer development initiative to one that includes live readings, trade stalls at book festivals, and inclusion in high school reading lists.
The community that formed because of the class was already composed of writers and readers. Everything that came after? Was a response to “now we have a dozen new books…we should make sure readers know about them.” Alongside this was a declining support from trad pub for English-language romance, and lessons learned from authors who were successful as indies and online. Every new thing attempted has been about helping authors write better books, and helping readers find the books. The live readings are a happy example of those two goals being met simultaneously, plus fun.
2. Gaps in the market that #romanceclass has actively sought to fill: how were they identified, and how effective was the community in meeting readers’ needs? In what ways do cultural enablers or roadblocks influence the creation, production and consumption of Filipino romance fiction?
The class and community was formed precisely because the authors who joined wanted to contribute to a genre that they didn’t see themselves in. Me, I want to see me: that was the very first gap. We get new members every time we open a class, five years on, and this is still the case. And it continues, because say an author does write one book that allows them to feel seen…well there’s so much more to a person and one book can’t cover it. Or this particular thing isn’t experienced by another person the same way. By listening to readers we also found out that gaps are everywhere, not just in featured characters. We need romance books set in more places, that are more inclusive, cover more age groups, etc. I’ve tried to help it along by issuing challenges every class. “Must have a sex scene.” “MC can’t be a writer.” “Choose from one of four tropes.” “Cannot be set in Manila.” The authors in the community have stepped up every time. Some end up forming the habit of challenging themselves, which I think is what we need right now as we’re helping each other grow.
3. Reactions by the broader literary community, local and abroad, to #romanceclass, and the efficacy of online channels to reach a global audience for Filipino authors.
As much as the live events have been fun and so affirming, this is a community that is based online, and thrives online. It’s thriving because of readers who discovered us and keep reading the books as they come out, and authors who use their platform to boost a book they feel is relevant to their own readers. Finding out who the readers are and where they are has been awesome and humbling, and the next initiative is to give back, and make it easier for Filipinos to read books that are diverse and inclusive too.
4. Key lessons learned through #romanceclass initiatives, data collection methods, and some initial findings from this data.
Lessons learned: Readers are smart. Readers are everywhere. Work with people who get it. Give readers choices, and when they do choose, think about what went into the choice.
June 19, 2018
How to Meet-Cute: romanceclass pop-up July 2018
Text from @romanceclassbooks: A meet-cute is a scene (in a book, film, or tv show) where a future romantic couple meets for the first time. What’s your favorite meet-cute? Would you like to know what makes a meet-cute…cute? Kilig? Memorable
Join us on July 14 at Bluesmith Cafe, Ayala the 30th in Ortigas from 2pm onwards for a discussion on crafting unforgettable meet-cutes that are guaranteed to give you feels. The discussion will be led by actors Gio Gahol, Gracielle So, and Sam Aquino, using scenes from manuscripts by #romanceclass authors Carla de Guzman, Ines Bautista-Yao, Six de los Reyes, Chi Yu Rodriguez, C.P. Santi, Clare Elisabeth Marquez, and Brigitte Bautista.
Book purchase required to join the lecture. Selection will be available at the venue on the day of the event.
See you there! 
June 18, 2018
What Kind of Day: we had a launch!
I use “book launch” because that’s the term people know, but it’s really a book party, I guess? Not really a launch. The way I publish now, the best use of my time is working for a good digital edition release. That’s worldwide, and I can set a price for it that rewards readers who’ve been supporting my books for years, or just is a good deal for someone who wants to try a book of mine for the first time. What Kind of Day’s official release day was May 31, and that went well. (Thank you so much!)
Twitter Moment of #WhatKindofDay posts!
What Kind of Day release (May 31 and after)
The print edition was also ready by May 31, and on that day I started shipping copies to Philippine residents who had ordered them. So by June 9…the only thing left to do was party. I also make it a point to give gift copies to the people who worked on the book with me, and the “launch” was a good time to get as many of them together in one place and do that.
We held it at The Wander Space, a travel cafe in Maginhawa St. Quezon City. Very Naya!
Earlier that day there was a #romanceclass lecture at the same place. Writing LGBT Characters was led by Brij Bautista and Ron Lim, editors of the Start Here anthology. Loved the discussion, appreciate the questions and writing plans shared by the participating authors. Definitely contact Brij and/or Ron if you need a lecture on this, especially if you’re writing romance.
