Andrea Pasion-Flores, left, is the current president of the National Book Development Board of the Philippines. And Karina A. Bolasco is the Guest of Honor Philippines literary program chief
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
The Philippines Book Market Introduces Itself to Frankfurt
Looking ahead to Frankfurter Buchmesse’s 2025 Guest of Honor Philippines, organizers say that the Philippine delegation to Frankfurt next year is expected to feature more than 70 authors, publishers, and other creative workers, with a presentation of 900 books.
At the Philippine national stand this year at Hall 5.1, A76, you can begin to familiarize yourself with this prominent and diverse market—an archipelago nation of 109 million people on 7,641 islands, with different ethnolinguistic groups speaking 135 languages, according to the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.
The Philippine book market, like so many, carries diversity not only in the nation’s population but also among readers’ genre preferences. The usual categories apply—fiction; nonfiction; poetry; romance and new adult; children’s books and young adult; graphic novels; and comics. Each genre has sub-categories, and fiction, in fact, has expanded to include speculative, noir, and climate fiction. New and young adult books now include gendered series—a growing list among publishers.
There are leaders in every genre, as most publishers see the wisdom in niche publishing, focusing on certain markets: Precious Pages for Filipino romance, Aklat Adarna for children’s literature, and 19th Avenida and Komiket for graphic novels and comics.
The guest of honor program’s organizers also talk of “a huge divide” between imported books—mostly from the United States and United Kingdom—and books that are locally written and published.
The biggest bookstore chains in the country carry 24 imported books to each locally produced book, a consequence of a trade law enforced before the country gained independence that stipulated the Philippine book market as an extension of the US market.
The Palanca Prize, now in its 74th year, is the country’s most prestigious literary award. The humanitarian organization PEN Philippines is now 67 years old and the Writers Union of the Philippines (UMPIL) has celebrated its 50th anniversary. And among other key features of the book community, the Silliman Writers Workshop, at 62, is the longest-operating university-based program of its kind, while the Manila International Book Fair is in its 45th year.
As the Frankfurt community gets to know more about the Philippines’ robust market, we have initial comments from two leaders in the country’s publishing industry. Andrea Pasion-Flores is publisher of Milflores Publishing, an independent house in Manila. And she’s also the current president of the National Book Development Board of the Philippines.
And Karina A. Bolasco is the Guest of Honor Philippines literary program chief and its curator of books. Bolasco is the former director of the Ateneo University Press and a past governor of the National Book Development Board, having helped found and run Anvil Publishing for 26 years.
Pasion-Flores: Near-Term Trends in Industry Statistics
In answer to Publishing Perspectives‘ questions, Pasion-Flores points to strength in the Philippine market today, showing second-quarter growth this year of 6.3 percent, which is ahead of first-quarter growth in 2023.
There can be discerned “an upward trend for children’s books with publishers responding to external indicators, such as the low PISA scores of the Philippines to help shore up the country’s declining literacy rates.“Andrea Pasion-Flores
“This growth,” she says, “means that the Philippines is one of Asia’s best performing major emerging economies, with only Vietnam showing a higher figure (6.9 percent). Malaysia follows with 5.8 percent, Indonesia with 5.0 percent, and China with 4.7 percent.”
The overall Philippine creative industry contributed 7.1 percent of the country’s GDP [gross domestic product] in 2023, with the creative domains of media publishing and printing activities having accounting for 4.2 percent of that.
Pasion-Flores discerns “an upward trend for children’s books with publishers responding to external indicators, such as the low PISA [Program for International Student Assessment] scores of the Philippines to help shore up the country’s declining literacy rates.
“This is seen in the uptick in publication of children’s books,” she says, “which grew from 743 titles in 2022 to 1,215 in 2023.
“There’s also growth in textbooks,” she says, “with the department of education beginning to procure textbooks again to respond to a new and simpler curriculum which is hoped to be more responsive to the needs of learners.
“There’s been more engagement with the education department through the help of the National Book Development Board,” Pasion-Flores says, “which has resulted in a better textbook policy by the department’s bureau of learning resources.
“These procurements are a welcome development after a moratorium declared during the administration of Nonoy Aquino,” Andrea Pasion-Flores says, “followed by several failed biddings during the Duterte administration. The growth in textbooks is reflected in an increase of 10.7 percent in new title production, from 4,273 in 2022 to 4,788 in 2023.”
Bolasco: Philippine Literature and International Markets
Many publishing industry observers consider the Philippines to be among the best-positioned Asian book markets to export content to fellow Asian nations and to farther-flung international consumers. In particular, there’s been a question of whether Manila’s sister ASEAN nations—Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Brunei, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Singapore, and Malaysia—might not form a fine group of markets receptive to much Philippine literature.
“Ours may not be close to the number of new releases in our neighbor countries, but the range and diversity are high, compared to previous years”Karina A. Bolasco
“As early as the 1990s,” Karina Bolasco says, basing her thoughts in the Frankfurter Buchmesse experience, “some of us were already going to Frankfurt Book Fair on its invitational and outreach programs.
“Later, we stopped going, because it was expensive to participate and we never got back a good return on investment. There was hardly any interest in our books. In addition, we thought we weren’t yet ready with a sizeable and diverse list we could be proud of.
“So the business just went one way, as it’s always been the case,” Bolasco says. “We looked instead looked for what we could bring back home to adapt and distribute for schools. But even that was actually covered by United States and United Kingdom publishers who regularly send their sales people over to the Philippines. Eventually, it became clearer that we didn’t really need to go anymore to Frankfurt.”
For almost a decade, however, a pivot has been underway, Bolasco says.
“We went back in 2015, and I must say that in the last 10 years, we’ve slowly been able to sell translation rights to publishers from China, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
“With the opening of our translation subsidy program early this year,” she says, “rights to 66 titles in 24 languages were sold in the first two cycles and another 88 titles are anticipated for the third cycle after this October’s Frankfurt.
“We look at being guest of honor as certainly not a one-time exhibition that ends after the 2025 book fair but as more of a portal—only the beginning of international rights sales which we’ll have to push and sustain for years to come.”
What’s more, Bolasco is heartened to see that “The total of new titles released in 2023 in the Philippines—10,297—was the highest output level recorded by Manila in the last decade.
“It actually increased by 42 percent,” she says, “from 2019 to 2021, after the pandemic.
“When online shops began to carry books, sales went up 100 percent for a number of publishers.
“The fact that the whole world was online boosted book promotions not just in number but more so in creativity. Total sales last year from all distribution outlets totaled 9 billion Philippine pesos (US$158.3 million).
“Ours may not be close to the number of new releases in our neighbor countries,” Karina Bolasco says, “but the range and diversity are high, compared to previous years.”
More will be forthcoming from Publishing Perspectives on the incoming 2025 Guest of Honor Philippines program and its market. The 2025 Guest of Honor Philippines program is a project of the country’s National Commission for Culture and the Arts; the National Book Development Board; the Department of Foreign Affairs; and the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, whom Publishing Perspectives interviewed last year.
More from Publishing Perspectives on Frankfurt’s 2025 Guest of Honor Philippines program is here, more on the Philippine market is here, more on guest of honor programs in world publishing’s book fairs and trade shows is here, and more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here.
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