Carljoe Javier's Blog, page 7

Kubori 4 coming soon

In the last year or so I've had the luck to meet and hang out with Mike David, creator of the wildly popular, extremely raunchy and over the top Kubori Kikiam. David is a very cool dude and I suppose my experience with his comics is common for many people: I can't help but laughing out loud. Sometimes I even remember panels, punchlines, or sight gags when I'm out on the street and my mind is wandering and I giggle to myself.

So it came as a very pleasant and flattering surprise that a couple o...

The Struggle to Find the Right Cookbook

I received some gift checks for books recently (thank you Katz and AdMU HS!) and since the TBA pile of books, both digital and print, just keeps growing, I was thinking of getting something I could use, in particular a cookbook, instead of fiction or business stuff, which I usually get. And really, I don't have any cookbooks, I just look stuff up on the net when I cook.

First choice was to check out David Chang's Momofuku cookbook. I don't know about you guys, but just hearing Chang's dishes d...

Oh Procrastination

I know one of the cardinal sins of writing is writing about writing. And yet here we are.

I've been trying to find a schedule for myself, one that would allow me to produce optimally. But as Dan Ariely observes in The Upside of Irrationality each and every one of us is guilty at least once in a while of procrastination. Lucky are the few who don't do this too often. But among the people who I know who have creative pursuits, rare is the person who is always motivated to work. It doesn't help t...

Gearing up for writing

Like a lot of people, I have little quirks in my writing process. Like a lot of people too, I suffer from a bad bit of procrastination. I will usually guilt myself into writing, but that hasn't happened lately.

In any case, there are certain developments (which I will share in the future, don't want to preempt anything) which has prodded me to get back to work on a novel I've been thinking about for a year, but have not been writing much of. I can wanting to get to it, and then, as is usual...

I think I'm getting how to sell books (after the SanFo FilBookFest)

I did two kinds of selling this weekend at the FilBookFest. And both were pretty exciting, especially doing them in a totally different place (which was just wow, man, I mean San Francisco is such a beautiful city and I enjoyed wandering it the few hours I could get away from the sales booth). Thanks to the Literacy Initiatives International Foundation, the Asia Foundation, the Book Development Association, the good people in San Francisco, the people who put the event together (and put up...

You Can Never Come Home

There's a terrifying wisdom to the idea forwarded by the Hero's Journey that you can never come home. Once you leave the place you are from for a long time, for a journey, or to grow up, there's no going back. The place you left will change. Your travels will change you. And when you return, both you and that place will be different. While I wouldn't say that I am on some kind of mythical quest, in my own return I am finding a sadness, confusion, and probably more than anything a feeling of l...

My Readercon Talk

Hey all, here's a video (first half) of my talk at the First Philippine Reader Conference. I talked about the crumbling line between writers and readers as we go from content producers and content consumers to prosumers, people who both consume and create content. I hope it's an interesting talk give it a try.

 

 

In LA, Five Days, TEN POUNDS!

I flew into LA a few days ago so that I could make it to the Phil-Am Expo. The event wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I did manage to sell out all the books I brought. Hoping to wrangle some traction here and get Pinoys to buy digital versions. It's tough, since the people there weren't really very interested in culture that much, but hey I'm pretty sure there's a way. Managed to chat someone up in a Barnes & Noble and convince them to buy a copy of And the Geek Shall Inherit the...

FilBookFest Prep

I've got quite a bit of backlog. Two movie reviews should be up on this blog within the week, I'm hammering out an essay I owe TJ Dimacali of gmanews.tv. And as part of my work in the real world, I'm trying to conjure up sales for the UP Press's ebooks. It's generally uncharted territory and here I am, diving in without caution and dragging them in with me. This is a pretty substantial challenge. Despite Amazon figures showing digital outselling print, the local publishing industry is still e...

Talks this Week!

Right so, I will be at the First Filipino Reader Conference on September 14 talking about the implications of social media and book clubs on reading, authors, and publishing. Whew, that was a mouthful eh? I feel very honored to kick off the proceedings with the Keynote speech and I do hope that what I say makes a substantial contribution to discourse and helps to build bridges between "literary" writers and readers (but as I mention in my speech, we're all readers). I'll post the full text...