Maybe you have the answers: Book marketing and promotion in the Philippines

A few months ago I met Miriam College Communication Arts students Julhean Divinagracia, Moira Estrada, and Meredith Marcelo (and their friend Bea). We talked for a bit about books and publishing and writing, and yesterday they sent me a copy of the school project that came about from it. It's called "Books in Action: A Production Thesis on the Effectiveness of Book Trailers in Promoting Local Works of Mina Esguerra and Karen Francisco."

Some interesting bits from their paper:

"...it can be inferred that their reading preference is the books that are known and famous. For a book to be known and famous, aside from its good plot, it has to be marketed and promoted well to the public..."

"The main purpose of the study with the use of book trailers is to motivate and encourage the Filipino youth to read and acknowledge the country’s own literature through the experience of reading Filipino literary works that were written by young contemporary Filipino fiction writers just as much as they read other foreign literature."

"Romance emerged as the most preferred genre of the second year students from both sections 6 and 7. Other genres like Inspirational, Comdey, Adventure, and Mystery also got huge numbers in the result, the researchers can say that the respondents also likes variety in their reading choices."

"...the top five things the respondents do before buying a book are first, looking if the book interest them and second, reading the summary presented on the back part of the book cover. There is also a big number of respondents who see if it’s affordable or ask for their friends’ opinions before buying a book or any reading material."

"...it shows that the second year college students of Miriam College think that it is very important to get information about a book and the plot is the most important information they must know when they buy a book. So far, the students are not particular with the author and are more interested in the story."

"Based on the results presented in the table, the students who do not buy books online outnumber those who buy books online."

"...students who read E-books outnumber those who don't read E-books. The result can not classify which of these students are the ones who buy in bookstores and those who buy online but it can mean that some students, whether they buy their books online or not also reads E-books that are downloaded from the internet."

"In the result, beside the other chic lits made by Filipino authors, books by Bob Ong are the only local books the students have read."

I love that they did this, and will continue to read their paper with nerdy fascination. I think it's wonderful that they chose to do this, and I am convinced that young Filipinos will read more once we write what they want to read (if we aren't doing that already) and let them know that these books are available.

Oh, and the book trailer they produced for No Strings Attached? Martin Escudero (of Zombadings) was Dante. My heart fainted. My heart needs smelling salts. Or white flower. Wake up my heart.

Any other Comm majors want to take on this book marketing challenge? I'll help in any way I can.