With permission by the Book Development Association Of The Philippines and the National Book Development Board, Read Or Die is inviting independent and small press publishers to sell their books (including comics, folios, magazines and chapbooks) at the 28th Manila International Book Fair. All merchandise will be consigned at the booths of the National Book Development Board and will be sold either by Read Or Die or NBDB staffers.

There is no selling fee and sellers will not be required to pay a commission. If you want to sell, all you have to do is fill out this form and turn over one copy of each of your works to the National Book Development Board.

Furthermore, Read Or Die requests that you register (also for free) with the Koop, a network of indie publishers which will publish joint catalogs, host book launches and workshops, and hold indie book fairs through Read Or Die, the National Book Development Board and Libro.ph. Clicking the checkbox next to “Join Koop” will enable registration. There are no terms and conditions in joining except insofar as you will be invited to attend workshops, events and exhibits on or about independent publishing.

Please make sure that you list your planned inventory in the submission form. We will mail catalogs of indie books and comics to interested librarians and schools before the Book Fair .


Of course having said that, I'd like to make a comment with regards to the local independent publishing scene.

By no means am I an expert when it comes to the local scene. Maybe I' m just ignorant, but I haven't really seen a lot of independent books published (and hopefully I'm wrong about that). Most of the local books (if not all) that are circulated are published under the bigger publishing houses. That's not the case however when it comes to comics and magazines.

I think the biggest hurdle an independent book publisher faces is printing. It's not the only necessary step in getting your book out there but it is one that has a steep hurdle. Printing seems like an arcane art that is expensive and full of complex processes. I think that's only partially true and there are other cheaper alternatives if you know what you're doing. (And similarly, I think it's for that same reason that a couple of indie publishers are printers themselves. Culture Crash, Nautilus Comics, and Philippine Genre Stories are examples of the pubisher-printer business.)

Comics and magazines, on the other hand, don't necessarily have to deal with printers, especially the former. A lot of local indie comics are the products of photocopied pages and the cover is printed on a home printer. One could presumably go about the same way with magazines (especially the fanzines) but independent magazines might want to hire the services of a printer, especially if they want to go full-color.

What really sets apart comics/magazines from book publishers, however, is the page count. Most indie comics/magazines will probably print their publication under a hundred pages. That's not the case with books. Most novels will probably run up to two hundred pages at least. (Of course it's different if it's a children's book.) That can easily rack up the costs and might not make photocopying the manuscript an option. Then there's the question of the quantity. Most printers require a minimum print run of 500 copies (unless it's a print-on-demand printer). As a publisher, that's a question you should ask yourself: do you think you can sell 500 hundred copies of your book? If not, what's your alternative? And in certain ways, that's the beauty of smaller publications like comics and magazines who employ the services of a photocopier which is essentially print-on-demand: I only need to make as much copies as the demand I expect. Not so when you're going with offset printing.

Another significant factor is book distribution. My previous blog entry tackles that topic. Comic and magazine distribution is no less difficult, but distribution for those publications is easier compared to books. They get cheaper rates for example and there is that tendency for people to try out a comic or magazine but not a book (perhaps it's the price point or perhaps it's the time it takes to read either publication). Storage is similarly a problem when you're the publisher and it's easier to stock a publication that numbers a dozen pages than it is to store a publication that has two hundred pages.

Anyway, Read or Die might not answer the printing problem of indie publishers, but it is doing something about the distribution problem, at least for the Manila International Book Fair event. So take advantage of it as it's not a chance you'll get every day. In the meantime, I'm trying to set up an interview with Kenneth so I can post an article on the printing process in the future which will help would-be (and existing) publishers.

Edit: I also like to add that comics and magazines are more receptive to ads than books, thus partially defraying overhead costs.