book sales

Back from the long weekend! I enjoyed staying at home but did not enjoy the heat. No, sir. I have heat rash on my face and arms. A bit annoyed also, because I’m having very little writing done due to work, planning a vacation with my siblings, cleaning the apartment, cooking my own lunch, and other things. I used to have so much writing stamina, but nowadays after work I just go home and watch TV or read a book. I need to save up and buy me some extra hours!

Anyway, this blog post is about book sales (wheeee) and I just want to say that I have received my first sales record from Visprint. I don’t expect much from my sales (Filipino authors, who go through literary life with no agents and no advances, often expect not to be paid, and get surprised when they do get paid a fair amount of money) , but I was happily surprised by the numbers: 507 copies of A Bottle of Storm Clouds sold from September 2012 to February 2013, with 30 copies sold at the book launch during the WIT event. It’s been sold in places in the country that I’ve never been, like Iloilo, GenSan, and the Mt. Cloud Bookshop (I know, yikes, I’ve never been to Baguio). This is why I still love traditional publishing: I can never sell 500 copies on my own (I think), and with such  reach.

20121017_174502

If you’re one of those who bought a copy of the book, thank you! And thank you to Ms. Nida, Kyra, and Visprint.

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My thanks also to Flipside Publishing for providing me with reports. For 2012, Lower Myths sold 13 copies, and The Viewless Dark sold 8. (I hear you snickering back there. It’s not a lot, I know, but I’ve received good reviews, and I’m grateful. But of course: do buy a copy?)

ApocalypsesI‘m happy to announce, has sold 23 copies so far. 

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These numbers are small I know, but they’re not yours they are my own – charot. I’m just here to sell some books.

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In the pipeline: the ebook version of A Bottle of Storm Clouds, a print version of The Viewless Dark as part of an anthologyand a science fiction novel.

Yep.

hello 2013

It’s the second day of the new year and I’m scrambling to get some work done. So? How have you all been? Wait, let me just share with you these links before I dash:

  • Thursday Never Looking Back, an anthology about the world’s end, is now available on Amazon. Buy a copy! It has three of my poems, and great work from local authors.
  • Authors talk to the Manila Bulletin about what books to give as gifts. It’s never too late to go book-shopping. Read about our answers here.
  • Jerald Uy on Rappler lists A Bottle of Storm Clouds as one of several Pinoy book you can give to your loved ones.
  • My poems – “Ten Truths”, “Somebody tell the river”, and “Elegy for the lost minutes” – will appear in an upcoming issue of UK-based literary magazine, NEON. Many thanks to editor Krishan Coupland. http://www.neonmagazine.co.uk/
  • For those who can’t find A Bottle of Storm Clouds in the bookstores, you can order a copy online via Lazada. It’s available for nationwide delivery.
  • Meann Ortiz on GMA News Online recommends Lower Myths and other books.

For more information about my published works, please visit this page.

Back home, found these babies, old issues of Asimov’s SF.

Asimov's SF

And here’s J, channeling Bruce Lee in Bulacan.

J as Bruce Lee

More blather about 2012 to follow. But I’m grateful, grateful, grateful. Happy New Year, everybody!  :)

one more page reviews lower myths, the viewless dark, storm clouds

Well, if this ain’t the best way to cap off my week: Tina Matanguihan of One More Page reviews my three books.

Lower Myths is a good starter for Eliza’s works, if you’re into quick, fantasy reads with a local flavor. Of course, it could also be too short for you, but that’s why you’d end up looking for her other works just to satisfy that craving. :)

A Bottle of Storm Clouds is one of those books that you can’t help but keep on reading but you also don’t want to end just yet. I tried not to read this book too fast because I wanted to savor each story. There’s something interesting and entirely different in each story — some of them were creepy, most of them sad, but all had really good fantasy elements that stretched my imagination wider than it did before. :) I liked how Eliza hinged most of the stories with real human experiences like grief and sadness, family and friendship and love and even selfishness and life crisis.

The Viewless Dark…even if I read this in broad daylight, I still felt creeped out every now and then with the story. I liked how the story unfolded from the death of Flo and into flashbacks that pointed just to how exactly Flo ended up that way to what happened to Anthony’s family. I liked how vivid the setting was and how sufficiently creepy the “possession” they set up, until the final twist in the end which undid everything I thought I knew. And then Eliza wraps it up in a different way, giving it a poignant, almost hopeful ending.

Read the full post here.

visit the new flipreads!

new_flipreads_2

From their email:

Flipreads gets a make-over!

More powerful and user-friendly

Last year, on 11/11/11, we launched the country’s first operational ebookstore, Flipreads.com. In the months since, we have been providing ebook retail and distribution service through Flipreads, continually testing our platform and looking for ways to serve our clients and ebook providers better.

Today, 12/12/12, we are happy to announce the brand spanking new Flipreads.com! We didn’t just try to make it look prettier; we also added features more useful to buyers. Some of these features are:

  • A more powerful search function
  • The use of a shopping cart
  • A record of your downloaded ebooks
  • A new payment gateway, Payeasy
  • Integration with Readmill for the iPad

Download an ebook or two now. I have some books available there. Enjoy!

my books on ilovebooks

Hello, hello. My ebooks are now also on ilovebooks.com, “an electronic bookshop stocking over 300,000 ebook titles in over 50 categories. It allows book lovers to purchase their favorite e-books and read them anywhere, anytime on their devices. The store is owned by MediaCorp, Singapore’s most diverse multimedia company with interests in TV, newspapers, radio, magazines and new media”, according to Kristine Reynaldo‘s lovely email.

Buy a copy!
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In other silly news, I got dragged to the shoot for the company AVP. I played…a corporate officer!
Oh god I hope they won’t show the video in the cinemas.
Happy long weekend! :)

want some free ebooks? follow flipreads on twitter

From Flipside VP and General Manager Honey de Peralta, posted 12 hours ago:

Launching a weekly Flipreads contest on Twitter with the question, “What’s your favorite Filipino book?”. Use the hashtag #flipreads with your answer. Answers will be accepted till tomorrow noon. Winner will be chosen at random and will win Eliza Victoria’s Lower Myths!

You have till noon today peeps!

Just tweet us your favorite novel using the #Flipreads hashtag (and if your account is private, make sure you mention @flipreads and we follow you so we can monitor it) and get a chance to win Lower Myths by Eliza Victoria.

 

Now available for online purchase

Amazon.com (MOBI) | Flipreads.com (Adobe DRM/EPUB) | iTunes (iOs)Barnes & Noble (Nook Book)

Lower Myths features two compelling novelettes of contemporary fantasy. In “Trust Fund Babies,” children of two warring witch and fairy families face off in the final round to a centuries-old vendetta.

In “The Very Last Case of Messrs. Aristotel and Arkimedes Magtanggol,” an aristocrat and his daughter consult a famous lawyer-sibling pair about a mysterious crime. But in the lawyers’ hilltop mansion by the sea, they uncover sinister hints that their reality may not be what it seems.

some updates

Maybe some books to keep your Nook company today? New Flipside titles are now up at Barnes and Noble, including the Philippine Speculative Fiction series and books by Sarge Lacuesta, Rye Gutierrez, and my own Lower Myths.

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The heavy rains, with rainfall levels that now surpass the infamous Ondoy, have been nonstop over the metro and nearby provinces since Monday night. Still raining here in Makati, though some floods have receded.

Bulacan, my home province, is now under State of Calamity. There has been water inside our house for almost a month now. What are our elected officials doing?

The two days of rain in QC now exceeds the monthly rainfall normally experienced by the entire National Capital Region.

Ten out of 17 cities in NCR are under State of Calamity.

The Cubao underpass is now closed to traffic.

BBC posted some photos here.

A friend of mine snapped this photo in UP Diliman today. Look at that “lake” in front of the Oblation.

And so on.

kristine ong muslim reviews ‘lower myths’

Posted on Amazon:

Lower Myths is Eliza Victoria’s splendid two-story debut collection. I like the second novella better than the first one. “The Very Last Case of Messrs. Aristotel and Arkimedes Magtanggol, Attorneys-at-Law” unfolds at an Elmore Leonard pace – brute, concise, confident. There’s a combination of boldness and grace in Lower Myths, making it an enjoyable romp into the macabre. I imagined the two stories, with their distinct Philippine flavor and genre trappings culled straight from the vernacular, would have made excellent graphic novels.

Kristine is the author of We Bury the Landscape, and she serves as poetry editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction.

I am a fan of Kristine, and Elmore Leonard, and this review made me happy.

philippine speculative fiction volumes from flipside

The Philippine Speculative Fiction series, a print anthology series spearheaded by Dean Alfar, can now be read on your Kindle and other devices.

Published by Kestrel and Flipside, PSF Vol. 4 is the latest in the series to appear on Amazon. I have a story here called “Parallel”.

Product Description

A comic book fan gets his wish; A woman’s quest for the perfect man; Diseases sold over the Internet. The Philippine Speculative Fiction series are anthologies that showcase the rich variety of Philippine literature: between these covers you will find magic realism next to science fiction, traditional fantasy beside slipstream, and imaginary worlds rubbing shoulders with alternate Philippine history — demonstrating that the literature of the fantastic is alive and well in the Philippines.

Stories from this series have been included in the Honorable Mentions list from The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin Grant.

“Volume 4 of the series is, in my humble opinion, the best yet in the series. It contains 24 stories by both new and more established writers.” – World Fantasy Award-winning author Jeffrey Ford

Contributors include:

Ronald Cruz
Charles Tan
Jose Elvin Bueno
Kenneth Yu
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
Maryanne Moll
Carljoe Javier
Joseph Nacino
Paolo Jose Cruz
Adam David
Erica Gonzales
Anne Lagamayo
Vincent Simbulan
Eliza Victoria
Leo Magno
Noel Tio
Celestine Trinidad
Isabel Yap
Monique Francisco
Kathleen Aton-Osias
Sharmaine Galve
Crystal Gain Shangkuan Koo
Andrew Drilon
Apol Lejano-Massebieau

Go grab the other volumes!
Other titles: