Rocket Kapre – Fantastic Filipino Speculative Fiction

Writing (and Writer) News:

• Dominique Cimafranca shares his presentation on Online Literature for the Tabaoan Writers Conference (yes, he does mentions us ^_^). The conference is ongoing at the moment, so do check Dom’s blog for coverage (he has Day 0 and Day 1 impressions up on his site.)
• Speaking of writers getting together, Ian Rosales Casocot has posted a call for submission of manuscripts to the 49th Silliman University National Writers Workshop.
• Ruin and Resolve contributor Catherine Batac Walder tells us she’s got a story out in this week’s Philippine Graphic. It’s entitled “Hey Soldier”. Congrats Catherine!
• In further congratulatory news, I’ve read that (via macoy’s blog) it seems that Gio Paredes’ Kalayaan indie superhero series might see some U.S. distribution.
• Via Yvette Tan’s, we’ve learned of Filipino Scares, a tumblr site with short (flash-length) horror stories.
• Over at the Philippine Genre Stories blog, Kenneth Yu has a post on ongoing local writing competitions, and another on a workshop for online writing from Luis Katigbak (the first is on the 15th).
• Kenneth also informs us that the launch of Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. V will take place on April 24, 2010, 3 p.m. at the UView Theatre of Fully Booked at Bonifacio Global City.

Events:

• For those looking for a twist on typical Valentine’s fare, science writer and curator of the upcoming Mind Museum (and friend of the site) Ms. Maria Isabel Garcia dropped us a line to let us know of When Love Falls an evening of love and science on February 12, where psycho-analyst Dr. Agnes Bueno will discuss love gone awry. You can see the poster here.
• I think we’ve mentioned it before, but let me remind everyone that KomiksTrip, the first UPLB comics convention, is taking place on February 13.
• Speaking of comics, the Renaissance Project, a comics/komiks event for the benefit of Filipino artists who have fallen on hard times, seems to be pushing through on February 20 21 at the SM Megamall Megatrade hall.

Reviews:

• Some reviews of interest over at Metakritiko (which I’ll be leaving soon, unfortunately. Although I’m sure you’ll all be pleased with the new man at the helm ^_^). I take on Lola by J. Torres and Elbert Or  (it’s also been reviewed by Ruel de Vera)
• Also on Metakritiko, Fidelis Tan reviews Underpass. You can actually read her favorite story of the lot (by the Trese pair of Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo here or here). Also on the channel, Mighty Rasing reviews Legion and Marrianne Ubalde praises Kapitan Sino.

As a publisher (digital or not) avenues of distribution are key to any strategy. It’s our job, after all, to get the stories of our authors in front of as many people as possible. Smashwords.com is one of the more open and promising ebook distribution outlets at the present (it is DRM-free as well), and we’ll be releasing our ebooks and digital files of Usok on the site. Smashwords distributes through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Sony and Shortcovers as well (we’ll let you know when/if Usok pops up in those sites) so it’s a great place to be.

For starters we’ve got Usok #1 available as a single file download at Smashwords in a variety of formats, which I’ll discuss in a bit. Since Usok #1 is free, you don’t need to register at Smashwords in order to download it, but if you’ve got the time, feel free to go through the process so that you can review Usok on Smashwords (pretty please? ^_^), and so you’ll be all set when our non-free offerings come out.

Aside from reviews and helping spread the word, trying out the different formats and letting me hear your feedback would be of great help as well.  Which format did you prefer, and what would you like us to improve on in the future? There’s a bit of a trial-and-error type learning curve involved in Smashwords’ ebook formatting system, which is why we’re testing this out with Usok, a free offering, rather than with our first anthology, Ruin and Resolve. The good thing about Smashwords is that after you purchase an ebook, if there are any updates to the file made afterward, you can re-download it for free. (This also opens interesting possibilities for a book with constantly updating content that can be made available for a flat fee, but I’ll save that for another day…)

Note that none of the versions includes the new cover which you can see above (file size considerations I assume) but you can download the cover image here or from Smashwords, and certain readers (like Stanza) allow you to attack a cover image to the ebook file.

For those interested in the details/differences of the downloadable versions, I’ve got a breakdown of the versions, file types, and a few desktop readers after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

We all knew it was coming: the Kindle is going international. A Kindle with international wireless whispernet (and yes the Philippines is covered) will start shipping on October 19 and is available for pre-order now. You can find more details at blogkindle and Teleread.

Not a bad time to be a digital publisher eh?

Since Rocket Kapre launched a month ago, we’ve been whetting your appetite for a certain anthology by giving you weekly interviews with contributors. For the month of September, we’ve picked the brains of Kate Aton-Osias, Crystal Koo and Dominique Cimafranca regarding their stories in The Farthest Shore, an anthology of secondary world fantasy from Filipino authors, and now you can read those stories for yourselves: The Farthest Shore has been released, just in time for weekend reading. Please do check it out, and let us know what you think!

We also have a few more Farthest Shore author interviews in the pipeline (and now you’ll actually know what they’re talking about).  This Wednesday we’ll speak to Eliza Victoria about her story, “The Just World of Helena Jimenez”.

No, this isn’t going to be about why I chose the name “Rocket Kapre”—that much is simple enough:  I wanted something that was distinctively Spec Fic and distinctively Filipino, and the instant I put “Rocket” and “Kapre” together, the logo sprung into my brain, fully formed. I don’t believe in Fate, but I do believe in Occam’s Razor.

This very first (original) post is going to be about why I’m putting Rocket Kapre up in the first place, why I want to do this—need to do this—before I can do anything else with my life. Those of you allergic to personal reflection or sentiment can rest assured that I will make an effort to keep both out of future posts, but as this is the inaugural post for Rocket Kapre, I feel that I may be allowed a bit of leeway. As saying goes: “ang taong ‘di lumilingon sa pinanggalingan ay ‘di makakarating sa paroroonan.” [One who does not look back at where he/she has come from will never reach his/her destination.]

After I resigned from my position at the law firm, many of my friends and acquaintances assumed that I had done so to pursue my childhood dream to be a writer. While I appreciated their support and good intentions, their assumption was wrong on two levels: first, while I would certainly work on my writing, I was resigning to become an Editor-Publisher, not a writer; and second, becoming a writer had never been a childhood dream. When I was a child I dreamnt of being an indomitable lawyer, or a tireless Ombudsman, or even a valiant policeman (Mom almost had a heart attack). On evenings where I allowed my fancy to really fly free, I allowed myself to believe I could be President of the Philippines.

But a published writer? Never.

It was not that I didn’t love stories—I was a voracious, insatiable reader. When I was a child, I trawled through my Mom’s books indiscriminately, reading everything from religious texts to autobiographies to a very educational parenting guide which dealt with the many tricks children use to manipulate their parents (needless to say, this book was promptly reverse-engineered to suit my nefarious six year old purposes). Once I read my first genre novel though—a secondary world fantasy entitled “The Sleeping Dragon” by Joel Rosenberg—there was no turning back for me:  from that point on, Science Fiction and Fantasy were my drugs of choice.

So why didn’t I dream of being a genre writer? Because when I was a child it simply was not possible.

After all, for young Pao, who could properly be called “genre writers”? David Eddings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Orson Scott Card, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams… these were the authors who filled the SFF store shelves of my childhood, and all the books that bore their embossed names came from the United States (or, if I’d bought the book in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom). Hell, that could be said about most of the non-genre books as well, with locally authored books being lumped together under the aggressively unhelpful category of “Filipiniana” (unless, of course, they were Tagalog Romances). No one was publishing genre novels (I was interested in no other form of fiction) locally, and I had been dead set against migration for as long as I could remember so that was not an option. So I turned my attention to more attainable dreams, such as the Presidency of the Republic, for even as a child I could see that the “genre author” door was closed to me because of where I had been born, and would stay closed because of where I chose to remain.

That was then. Today I say that door is open—and if it isn’t, it’s time we broke it down.

The Internet allows for instantaneous international delivery of content. Computers allow people access to this content when they want it, how they want it. Stories are just another form of content, and if going digital allows us to reach a wider audience, then I say we go for it. We’ve got great stories here, stories that no one else can tell, and I don’t see why we should let little things like geography get in between readers and a great story.

Of course, some writers could care less about the size of their readership, intent instead on crafting that perfect story to embody their artistic vision. Yet wouldn’t it be great if hundreds of thousands of people around the world could share that vision? Wouldn’t it be great if, because enough people bought your books, you could spend your days doing nothing but writing?

Some dream huh? But it’s a dream I want Filipino children (in body and in spirit) to have, and I want to help make those dreams a reality… because it is not the impossibilities that excite me, that keep me awake at night.

It’s the possibilities. And today, those are endless.