Mina V. Esguerra's Blog, page 3

Interim Goddess of Love 2025 (Vibal edition)

Hannah and the Gods are back. (!)

The Interim Goddess of Love trilogy was recently acquired for Philippine print distribution by Vibal, one of the largest (if not the largest?!) publishers in the country. I’m pleased to announce that the books, available again as separate titles, will all be launched at the Philippine Book Festival, March 13 to 16, at SM Megamall Megatrade Halls. Then watch out for the books at all of Vibal’s retail locations.

These are the new 2025 edition covers! I love how each one captures the thing and the mood of each book, that I can’t even talk about because spoilers but looking at all of this brought it back to me. I feel so honored and excited that these books are back, to be seen by new readers, and to bring closure (lol) and finally a complete set for those who’ve supported these books for years.

Credits: Cover art and illustration: Kayla delos Angeles | Layout Artist: Jahn Ellis Fernandez | Managing Editor: Jerome Vitug

About the books:

College sophomore Hannah Maquiling doesn’t know why everyone tells her their love problems. She’s never even had a boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop people from spilling their guts to her, and asking for advice. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when the cutest guy in school tells her that she’s going to have to take on this responsibility—but for all humanity.

The Goddess of Love has gone AWOL. It’s a problem, because her job is to keep in check this world’s obsession with love (and lack of it). The God of the Sun, for now an impossibly handsome senior at an exclusive college just outside of Metro Manila, thinks Hannah has what it takes to (temporarily) do the job.

INTERIM GODDESS OF LOVE: While she’s learning to do this goddess thing, she practices on the love troubles of shy Kathy, who’s got a secret admirer on campus. Hannah’s mission, should she choose to accept it, is to make sure that he’s not a creepy stalker and they find their happily ever after—or at least something that’ll last until next semester. (As if she could refuse! The Sun God asked so nicely. And he’s so, well, hot.)

QUEEN OF THE CLUELESS: If you’ve been feeling neglected by the Goddess of Love lately, don’t worry—Hannah Maquiling, college sophomore, is in training to take over. The Original Goddess is missing, but Hannah is Interim Goddess now, and she should figure out how to solve humanity’s love problems soon. Quin (God of the Sun) is still her mentor, still really hot, but apparently isn’t as honest about his other earthly relationships as she thought. It’s frustrating, and enough to make her check out possibilities with Diego (God of the Sea) and Robbie (Cute Human).

In the meantime, she’s decided to spend some of her precious training time helping to break up a relationship, instead of putting one together. Why? Because the girl in question happens to be her best friend Sol, whose boyfriend is stealing not just from her, but from other people on campus. Sol didn’t exactly summon the Goddess, but this is what power over Love is for, right? Surely it’s not just about matchmaking, but ending doomed relationships too. (Even when it’s not what people want.)

ICON OF THE INDECISIVE: College student Hannah Maquiling, also temporarily working as the Goddess of Love, has had enough of everyone asking for her help when it comes to relationships. It’s her turn to find romance! She deserves it, after serving as matchmaker and confidant to everyone else in Ford River College for the past year. She’s had a crush on handsome senior (and God of the Sun) Quin forever, but he’s destined to fall in love with an extraordinary mortal woman, so she’s figured her chances with him have pretty much dropped to zero.

It’s not like she doesn’t have any options for a classic college romance though. There’s Diego, God of the Sea and Quin’s best friend/enemy. And regular guy Robbie is stepping up, making sure she knows how he feels about her. How hard can it be for a goddess to find someone to love, and be loved in return?

The trilogy is being released under Vibal’s new fiction imprint, VIDA NEW ADULT, of which I’m the editor-at-large. I will be at the Philippine Book Festival on all days (most days at RomanceClass booth BO11, and at the Vibal booth on March 15 3 PM), come over, get the books and say hi!

The post Interim Goddess of Love 2025 (Vibal edition) first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

Reaching readers requires showing up (and ugh, paperwork)

Last week, I got to present RomanceClass and pitch five featured (and appropriate) books to an audience of over 200 public school educators specifically tasked to acquire books for their schools and students.

There’s work to be done to get to this point. Registering, showing up, participating gets you inside the room, so to speak. When you’re inside the room, and you have 10 minutes to talk about 5 books and your writing community, you bring in all that you learned from being outside.

I made a case for our books (fiction novellas that aren’t textbooks, not overtly educational) being available in their schools. I told them I know the age group reads this (I have analytics), and the material provides the talking points they expect and more.

This is just another day to you if you actually work in local publishing! But I’m indie, and RomanceClass is actually all indie authors who hate paperwork and will do everything but that, I’m just documenting what’s happening when I tell myself to do the paperwork for the team, and show up.

But, Mina, isn’t this just a ten-minute presentation? How much work could that be? Don’t you know all the books already? Surely it won’t take a lot of time to show up and talk about this, why do you keep describing this as “work”?

I realize that some people may be not as paperwork-averse as I am! This should be a walk in the park for you guys. But this is what it looks like for me:

First there was registering to be known by a government agency as a writing professional (1), partnering with a distributor with all the necessary accreditation (2), then applying to be considered for a booth at a literary festival (3), upon acceptance there was identifying five books to highlight to the educators by providing metadata (4), submitting print copies for sample and exhibit purposes (5), filling out a template tool for each of the five books to help the educators identify if these books meet their requirements (6), creating a deck about RomanceClass and the books (7), writing a script and practicing it (8), presenting it (9).

What am I trying to say by sharing this?

On a regular day in, say 2019, I would not do the 9-point list mentioned above. I did not do anything similar to that for years. I could argue that the option was not available, I was not aware of how to get our books in front of an audience of educators, or we were doing fine just tweeting “buy my book” links out into social media. But it also meant that for years we were writing books that were just never being discovered by young Filipino readers through their schools. And why? Because of my aversion to forms and paperwork.

I just so happened to have mustered up the energy to start doing this because social media completely collapsed on us. I was not okay with our books completely disappearing. I’m sharing the general steps here so you (fellow paperwork-averse person) will know, and if this doesn’t yet make you just want to lie down then at least you have an idea where to start and how to proceed. Not just for yourself but also for your writing community, because once you start the process it’s easy to bring similar books and authors along.

I hope this leads to purchases and ultimately new readers and fans for the books and authors I pitched. This session was organized by NBDB and DepEd.

The books I presented were My Quarantine Diary by Ines Bautista-Yao, Choco Chip Hips by Agay Llanera, Hearts and Sciences by Celestine Trinidad, Flipping the Script by Danice Mae P. Sison, and Feels Like Home by Angel C. Aquino.

[Modified from a thread on Bluesky]

The post Reaching readers requires showing up (and ugh, paperwork) first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

Enough about me. Why don’t YOU care?

In 2017, I was invited to be part of a panel discussing the Happily Ever After. As a romance author, I was, and was expected to be, on the “pro HEA” side. The other panelists were filmmakers, who described their process when working on their independent projects as more “free” to choose an ending, because in their industry a media giant is associated with the happy ending.

When I think about that panel I think about creative industries where people make things they personally hate, and then when they’re “free” they swing the ending in the opposite direction. In this case, no HEA.

But what if the characters you’re writing about, the “voiceless” you chose to give a voice to, deserve love and not suffering?

In discussions I’ve had over and over, until the year 2025, I’ve encountered Filipino writers who not only avoid the HEA like the plague in their own work and reading choices, they also want all of us to stop writing it, it seems. I’ve always responded with a defense of the genre, my choices, but now…maybe I’ll have a new way of approaching this discussion.

When I write, I design characters that I end up loving. Maybe this is not something that all writers feel about their main characters, but this is how I work. I can be intentional about this and design characters to appeal to certain people; or I could go with the flow and design a character that will not bore me as I write 40,000 words about them.

If I design my character to the point that I love them, to the point that I know a reader will love them, how do I write about the world being cruel to them without giving them the relief and comfort and safety of experiencing real love?

I know why I write romance. I know that I do not have to write romance all the time, and sometimes I don’t.

When I choose to write romance, I know why I write HEA. For Filipino characters, in the Philippines.

Do you know why you don’t want to?

Do you just not know how?

The post Enough about me. Why don’t YOU care? first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

Social media crickets? No problem, but there’s work ahead

[Originally a thread on Bluesky] Going to pull this up to think out loud about it. My social media engagement has dropped from 2022 onwards. Trad media hasn’t been picking up our book recs. (All lists are all trad or prominent indies, barely any other country rep.) I’ve been posting links on 4 platforms, barely any clicks.

But my blog has been active. I didn’t check the stats when I was focusing on my social media presence, but I did notice that it was getting decent traffic when I was wondering why social media became crickets.

So I started updating more often, putting more valuable long-form posts there (here), and paid attention to posts that kept getting into my top 10 viewed despite being years old.

I realized that my books are in senior high school courses here, and the popular blog posts are probably in the reading lists. They’re not updated! I added links to those posts and a welcome message.

I set up a minavesguerra dot com email to focus the comms to the site. (The first time I used it, a student said, “can I use Gmail to send to this?” omg) But I get inquiries and invites through email now, which is awesome.

My other concern was the situation of the internet book community putting us (Filipino authors but it’s many countries’ authors really) in a box again to bring out when it’s a special occasion, and the goal had been to be part of a readers’ list all year. How can we be seen if social media isn’t the way to do it? We went back to in-person events. I accepted invitations to speak. I applied for spots at conferences and delegations to international events. I accepted collabs with literary institutions. I partnered with PH trad pubs to get more of our print books out. All of this from 2022.

Showing up again is leading to more collabs and invites. More RomanceClass authors have gotten book deals and panelist experience. (See announcements that we are making sure to document on independent websites, not just social media.)

I’ve met more young readers and writers, very much feel like I’ve introduced myself to a new generation. If they mention us on social media and make our presence felt there, great. (Bec social media clearly doesn’t want us doing that anymore without charging for the space.)

This is just me saying there’s a path around the crickets and silence on the apps, for books like ours and authors like us. It’s work though (and paperwork ugh). But as long as someone starts and people around you show up too, things can happen.

[Not in the original thread] Now, someone who reads every single post here will know that this is not the only thing I’ve started doing to expand on the opportunities that used to come easily, when social media was better. We have a manager for our film rights. I trademarked “RomanceClass” and my pen name. We’ve been reaching out to Philippine libraries and are now in more indie bookshops (and yay for more indie bookshops opening and reaching out to us!). I met with a distributor, because I want the books to be in non-bookstore retail locations. I’ve proposed audio partnerships (grants?) to institutions. I’m probably forgetting something, but yes books can thrive outside of social media, and being ignored on social media isn’t the end.

It was a great time (that I still mourn), but there are doors we can try to open elsewhere.

The post Social media crickets? No problem, but there’s work ahead first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

My session at CCP Pasinaya 2025

It’s been the theme of my posts from 2022, and here it is again: I appreciate the opportunities to go outside and see people. Because I’m reminded every time that there are so many people. For example: so many students. So many writers. So many readers. So many fans of art. So many aspiring artists. Every year, every event, someone is attending for the first time, and the people they meet and what they see will form a core memory that for better or worse will determine what they do on this path. Having attended events in other countries where the population is in general less…dense, it is so interesting to be able to see dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands (!) of people show up for an author. It doesn’t need to be my own audience for me to know that it’s rare and important.

At CCP Pasinaya 2025 we only had a half hour for our sessions, and my lectures actually don’t have to take too much time. I’m an outliner, and when I teach I literally just share my outline. Many writers are not into outlines and that’s fine–I think just knowing an outline exists keeps you aware of your position, when you wander. And you’re never really lost. 🙂

I gave a quick definition of New Adult Fiction, shared my outline as a writing exercise, and then answered four questions. (And gave away four books!) The Q&A was when I did not manage my time well, and went a little over. Apologies to the speaker of the next session, sir Alvin of the Filipinas Copyright and Licensing Society! I’m glad we were there early and got to catch up, and I’ll post soon about updates from FILCOLS that affect us authors (in good ways!).

The photos above were taken by author Tara Frejas, who was able to join my session and document it.

My next in-person event is a book signing at Fully Booked BGC on February 22, Saturday, 2:30 PM! Forever grateful to people who are able to attend any event.

Someone asked if I may be invited to speak at their school. Please send an email with the details to mina@minavesguerra.com.

before + after my pasinaya 2025 session. thank you! #RomanceClass

[image or embed]

— Mina V. Esguerra (@minavesguerra.com) February 1, 2025 at 6:31 PM

The post My session at CCP Pasinaya 2025 first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

This place (minavesguerra dot com) is where you find me

A few months ago I migrated a family group chat from Meta/FB Messenger to a different platform because a tita’s FB account got compromised and the account was still pretending to be my tita in the group chat. Had to verify each account if it was really tito/tita/cousin before adding it to the new one.

That space is dangerous for many reasons and not just the latest ones [archived article]. I highly recommend, to Filipinos especially, transition your family out of it asap. If not completely right away, then start with the group chat where personal information is discussed. Treat every account as compromised. If you can see them in person, and then add them to the group chat, while seeing their phone and seeing the account you invited getting the invite, and then seeing it being added in real time, do that.

While we’re at it, this is a concern for the book industry as well, because so much of the Philippine book industry’s communications is through that very compromised platform. Some publishers and suppliers have their entire internet presence only on FB, a space increasingly associated with suspicious activity. Transition away, invest in your own websites, use email again. Stop using FB as the primary platform. Yes, many Filipinos are on it, but prioritize a safer place to communicate and establish your credibility.

I accidentally got some people to switch to emailing me when I couldn’t access my Messenger for months (thank you so much!), but the habit hasn’t completely stopped for every single person. I’ll insist on this now.

My about page has my updated contact email. If you know my Gmail, that still works. If you prefer receiving email updates, I have an email newsletter too.

The post This place (minavesguerra dot com) is where you find me first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

State of the Writing and Publishing Situation 2024

The goal I’d set for 2024: “More workshops, lectures, talks, speaking engagements. Let’s do this.”

I absolutely did all of that.

What I did not get to do was release a new book this year. I’m learning that staying on track with the work-in-progress is harder when I’m editing (we released new Blush Books!) and also writing my scripts for the speaking engagements (I have a script for every talk I give, nothing is off-the-cuff over here). I’ve absolutely been working, just not on my own books.

As an indie author, here’s how the books did in terms of retailers and countries. This is not a surprise to me, except that maybe it’s the lowest showing of Overdrive ever. I have some thoughts on why that is, but this reminds me to resume the outreach to libraries on Overdrive, especially as I’m more active on Bluesky now.

Not surprised also with the country breakdown of my 2024 readership. This exercise is all the more useful to me as I’m thinking of what to focus on, when it comes to international book fairs and distribution efforts.

In a year of no new books from me, this is how my titles did:

First Time for Everything (2023) continues to be the achiever among my titles lately, and I really should keep up the momentum by…releasing the second Cafe Titas book. That’s the goal for 2025!

2025, by the way, is the 15th year that I’ve been self-publishing. [See this post from 2010, when I announced the release of Fairy Tale Fail.] I used to say that it’s not for everybody and the path you choose is yours, but now that I have 15 years of decisions behind me I’m going to say: Everyone should try self-publishing. At the very least learn it, and/or make preparations to do it if not right away then when they get their rights back to their books.

My catalog, reinforced by every year that I do my “state of the writing and publishing situation” post, is an example of a backlist that retains and increases value over time. Because I care about the books and keep the books alive (available and accessible) for new readers to discover. This is a career that has been built through many rejections and dismissals, and it has outlasted entire companies that were going to be the future of publishing.

This last part is wild actually and a bit of a shock (imagine my self-publishing career outlasting Twitter lol), but my books and my brand (my pen name is now a registered trademark) are still around because I’ve kept all rights, and partnered strategically, i.e. these people have to see value in what I’m doing. I feel fortunate to have found people in the industry who are that for me, and I wish every author the same.

But one really does pick up the skills to create this for themselves, and recognize where they need partnership to extend their reach, when they self-publish. Learn and start sooner rather than later. Think of Future You who will be thanking you for this!

The post State of the Writing and Publishing Situation 2024 first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

My Year in Books 2024

This is the least I’ve read in years! But I also decided not to stress out about maintaining a previous reading rate. Here are the books that I finished reading, not including the manuscripts and books I read as part of my work as editor.

Some stats for the year:

Romance: 50%

Self-published: 55%, Trad-published: 33%, Small press-pubbed: 12%

By a Southeast Asian author: 50%

By a Filipino author: 45%

Ebook: 57%, Print: 24%, Audio: 19%

A Summer Lesson in RomanceNoor JumanThe Lease of Their ProblemsBrigitte Bautista and Chi Yu RodriguezOne Night with my EmployerLea SicilianaHey, LoverDL WhiteWhen Poetry Becomes YouSahara PiangOther Words for HomeJasmine WargaYellowfaceR.F. KuangNight SongBeverly JenkinsA Quiet Unfolding: a soft landing. collectionDawn Lanuza, Layla S. Tanjutco, KB Meniado, Allonah Gacutan, Dominique Gonzaga-Sulatra, Kring Talladen, LAKAN TULA, Romy Peña CruzMEEGAN: A Holidate For HireRebekah WeatherspoonThe Earl’s Egyptian HeiressHeba HelmyDancing HandsJoanna Que, Charina Marquez, Fran AlvarezUsok – the Webzine of Fantastic Filipino FictionHorse BarbieGeena RoceroBack in the DayKatrina JacksonCounterfeitKristin ChenPosthumous: PoemsPaolo ManaloWild LifeOpal WeiThe Pinoy Monster Girlfriend AnthologyMotzie Dapul, Joyce de Guzman, Penguin G, Raizza Gallardo, Shirojiki Mattari, Kevin Samala, Raffy Punzal, Patsy EliasErasurePercival EverettHoney PotKatrina JacksonRiggedVanessa NorthBirthday GirlBrandy BushMari & Susan Chapter 1LJ AlmonteUnder the Fire Blossoms Chapter 1KirsedCat Cafeteria PreviewArli PagaduanAiyeee!Ren GalenoShaw BoulevardPopi LaudicoImages of America: Filipinos in Los AngelesMae Respicio KoernerThe Dating CountdownN.G. PeltierRole PlayingCathy YardleyBeneath the AcaciaCelestine Trinidad and Alma RamosHere for the Right ReasonsJodi McAlisterAnd They Were RoommatesElle DiazComfortable and FamiliarH. BenthamSpoiled BritKali DeckerSinukuan and Tikbalang Mystery: The Perfect MurderCelestine Trinidad and Alma RamosNot Here to Make FriendsJodi McAlisterSa WalaRen GalenoClara, DarlingChace Verity[redacted][redacted]A Man for Mrs. ClausRebekah Weatherspoon

I usually don’t finish books I don’t enjoy reading but I did read and finish one such book this year, and it’s the worst book I read in 2024. But I feel like this isn’t the space for me to give it or the author a platform; I understand that low ratings or negative reviews could still lead to interest in it. I’m not interested in helping this book in any way even inadvertently.

I hope I read more in 2025! But this is also my reminder to not stress out over it if I read less or same.

The post My Year in Books 2024 first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

Currently #18

I’ve been posting a lot here about work life, but since everyone else has holiday brain I’ll post about non-work things too.

1. If you follow me on social media, I post about food fairly equally as I post about books. If there’s anything that gives me joy at least three times a day, it’s deciding where to eat and what to have. Or what to prepare, if I’m making it myself. Some recent highlights in food: Bangus rice bowl (Ligaya Altanghap), ube latte (A.M. Espresso), and soy ice cream (Soy Bueno).

2. Tried the new LRT extension. The last station (for now), Dr. Santos, drops everyone right at SM Sucat, which is minutes away from most of my relatives who are living in Las Pinas and Paranaque. (Yes I’m a former South girl.)

Heading back (to the north lol)

— Mina V. Esguerra (@minavesguerra.com) 2024-11-23T10:20:21.506Z

Magdamag Market Cafe is also a short walk from the GMA Kamuning MRT station, which is why it’s easy for me to drop by there for grilled cheese when I have a free lunch hour (or three).

3. I watched: Five Blind Dates, a few episodes of Maxton Hall, Homebound 3.0.

4. I read these books by Filipino authors in 2024.

Books by Filipino authors I read in 2024 (and one I'm currently reading)

— Mina V. Esguerra (@minavesguerra.com) 2024-12-17T04:02:17.186Z

*the one I'm currently reading is here (tiny part 2)

— Mina V. Esguerra (@minavesguerra.com) 2024-12-17T04:05:06.720Z

The post Currently #18 first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.

My books are part of the Smashwords End of Year Sale

Letting you know that my books are part of the Smashwords 2024 End of Year Sale!

These books (regular price $0.99) are free until Jan 1:

My Imaginary Ex
Fairy Tale Fail

These books are $1.49 until Jan 1:

First Time for Everything
Your Place Next Year
That Kind of Guy
No Strings Attached
What You Wanted
Welcome to Envy Park
Love Your Frenemies

These books are $1.99 until Jan 1:

Better at Weddings Than You
Iris After the Incident
The Future Chosen
Scambitious

These books are $2.49 until Jan 1:

What Kind of Day (or get this on Amazon for $0.99 right now!)
Kiss and Cry
So Forward
Totally Engaged

This is $2.99 until Jan 1:

Interim Goddess of Love: The Complete Trilogy

Click “Buy with coupon” to get the discount! Thank you!!!

The post My books are part of the Smashwords End of Year Sale first appeared on Mina V. Esguerra.