Romance Around The World

What is Romance Around the World? I've recently connected with readers across the globe and one piece of feedback is that romance is often centered on the USA. So I thought, what if I created a min-blog series where I connect romance readers to romance authors who are outside of the continental USA. So pack your books and let's take our first trip to the Philippines!!!!

The Philippines is a country in Southeast Asia, in the western Pacific Ocean, and consists of about 7,640 islands. The Philippines is a multinational state, with diverse ethnicities and cultures throughout its islands and Manila is the nation's capital. The Philippines is known for its beautiful beaches and variety of fruits!

Author Spotlight

BIO: Mina V. Esguerra writes and publishes romance novels. Her young adult/fantasy trilogy Interim Goddess of Love is a college love story featuring gods from Philippine mythology. Her contemporary romance novellas won the Filipino Readers’ Choice awards for Chick Lit in 2012 (Fairy Tale Fail) and 2013 (That Kind of Guy). In 2013, she founded #RomanceClass, a community of Filipino authors of romance in English, and it has since helped over 80 authors write and publish over 100 books. She is also a media adaptation agent, working with LA-based Bold MP to develop romance media by Filipino creatives for an international audience. Visit minavesguerra.com for more information about her books and projects.

Follow on: Twitter | Instagram:

More links:

minavesguerra.com/about 

romanceclassbooks.com

WR: As an indie author how do you ensure your novels reach your readership consistently? What is your writing process?

Mina: I actually keep changing all of this up, so it’s nice to be asked this every few years, and it also helps me think about why I’ve made changes. When I started indie publishing on Amazon (in 2010), that was practically a decision to just consider a mostly US audience my readership. I started out in trad pub in the Philippines and already had a nationwide audience, but it was a struggle getting more than a small percentage of them to start buying my books on Amazon. So that was years of figuring out who I needed to be so the “Amazon audience” would buy my 
books—and after a few years I really had to think about what I was doing and who was it for.

In 2022, there are more Filipinos who comfortably buy from Amazon and other platforms, and many Filipinos who read on Wattpad (then buy from wherever), so now I make sure I focus on making my book available where they are. I’m still keeping tabs on the “Amazon audience” (which can mean different things to different authors) but I make sure that Filipinos know my books are about us. 

 

My writing process is the thing that hasn’t changed all that much. I plan and outline, then set schedules, and write, and revise my outline a bit if the writing takes me somewhere else. In 2021, I started doing a weekly livestream on Twitch and did my writing there, and it amazingly worked for me. I kept my weekly appointment to write, and did not feel unproductive or guilty if I did not write at all throughout the week! And then I just added more writing days if I wanted to meet a deadline. Did not realize that “writing in public” would work for me, but it has.

WR: What's one thing you want new readers to know about your current and backlist?

Mina:If anyone’s trying my books for the first time, I recommend my Six 32 Central series (What Kind of Day, Kiss and Cry, So Forward, and Totally Engaged). They’re more recent, the characters are in their 30s and 40s, and I feel like I got to show Filipinos as romantic leads as they exist in Manila (in the messed-up state that it is), and I love how oddly specific I get to be when it comes to things people might not realize is happening here. Like ice skating, and family corporation culture, tourism, immigration, karaoke parties...

I’m proud of my other books too, but I’m going to recommend my more recent ones, to anyone trying my stuff for the first time.

My series on Amazon or on Gumroad!

WR: You mentioned being connected in #RomanceClass. Can you share what #RomanceClass is? How does #RomanceClass support each other to write for your intended audience?

Mina: #RomanceClass was a contemporary romance class I started (pretty much on a whim) in 2013, that became an online class that had 100 participants. A dozen Filipino authors indie-published their first contemporary romance at the end of the first class, and suddenly we had a dozen books we needed to support. Any Filipino romance author self-publishing their (English language) book is going to need a lot of help—because it’s a local literary community that 
seldom supports romance, Filipinos, self-publishers, and Filipinos writing in English—and we happen to be all of the above. But we knew that! So, early on, we started to set up support systems to replace/sub for what we were excluded from.

Now, we have a pool of editors experienced in editing romance (the way we write it), cover designers, artists. And we organize events, cover shoots, workshops. We have to do every single thing! But we meet awesome people in the process.

 WR: Could you recommend 3 books from #RomanceClass authors?

Mina: All of these recommendations are on Amazon!

Truth or Dare by Brianna Ocampo 

Mango Summer by Agay Llanera

Alta: High Society Romance Anthology by Carla de Guzman, Suzette de Borja, and Bianca Mori

WR: Your novels are set in various geographical locations but mainly in the Philippines is this an intentional choice? Why or why not?

Mina: The books I’ve set in the Philippines are the ones I talk about the most, every chance I get, and that’s definitely intentional both in the writing and in choosing to mention them. I’ve written stories set in North America and for a time, these would outsell my backlist books set in the Philippines—but I was also noticing that the audience was not significantly crossing over or trying my backlist. 

The advice we Filipino authors (who write in English) would get is to cater to an American audience first, and then hope this audience picks up our other books about us (Filipinos in the Philippines). But that advice was not working for me, and I know my own numbers because I self-publish. So now I mainly write and talk about my books with Filipino characters in the Philippines, and I have no regrets. When there’s interest in one of these books, I see activity in the rest of the series, sometimes my entire backlist.

"That tells me that I’m reaching people who genuinely want to read about what I’ve chosen to write about and that’s a way better feeling."

**** 

What great advice!!!! 

I would encourage you to checkout Mina's books as well as any of the authors from #RomanceClass. Here's one my recent favorites

Your Place Next Year 

Also feel free to download this image and add book covers from authors around the world. If you are located outside of the USA feel free to add covers that are not in your home country. 

Happy Reading!