LET'S TALK BOOKISH: PRWF2016 PANEL TALK.

Hello, guys! We are all in the middle of a heated Twitter "discussion" about book diversity and I just want to let you all know I cannot stop learning from all of you. Truly though, I miss the days I can just fangirl nonstop on Twitter about books and those rare days I can post random rants/opinions without the fear of getting attacked. Let's all work towards having THOSE days back but the improved and much better versions. But this post is not about that haha - this is my recap for The Philippine Readers and Writers Festival 2016 Event last Sunday, August 28th.

Book Blogging 101: Growing Web and Social Media Presence to Promote Books

Hazel of Stay Bookish, Lyra of Defiantly Deviant, Eunice of Nerdy Talks Book Blog, Kai of Amaterasu Reads and I were panelists in The Philippine Readers & Writers Festival 2016. We talked about Blogging 101: Growing Web and Social Media Presence to Promote Books. This was my second panel (first was with SouthVille) and let's be honest here, I was excited but ninety five percent nervous. I was stressing out over the fact that no one would attend. When we arrived in Raffles however, few people were seated already and they just kept coming in!

Our schedule was 9:30AM to 12 noon, I even wondered why it was too long only to be cut short because the talk was such a success! We've shared a lot of things about Time Management, Reviews, Bookstagramming, ARCs, Social Media presence and such! We were only able to have an hour of Q and A and it was the best part because aside from the amazing questions, these people came in really for our panel! Ugh guys, my heart melted by just thinking about it.

I remember all the questions and I love them all but there are three that stuck up in my head. (These are not verbatim, okay) first one was about this person not having a literature background and it kind of like stops him a little I think in reviewing. Well, just like what I told him, it should not stop him from doing it. Then we were asked if is it true that when you are a book blogger, it comes with privilege. No, this is not true at all - the "perks" that we get are all bonuses or rewards because being a book blogger is work. We don't get paid for any of this so no privilege unlike what other people think. And the last question was actually like the best finale of the talk because an old man asked us what are we actually doing to like reach out to the poor who couldn't afford books more less, education. It was such an honor to be asked this but to be honest, at my level (I mean am not powerful enough or even wealthy), I have only donated books to our barangay and I haven't done much to reach that far out. But as a book lover, I am not closing my doors, if you know, people would actually fund like an outreach program or something, I would definitely volunteer as tribute! Then, a day later, we found out that the old man who asked these questions was actually the National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera!!! I honestly no idea who he was, totally clueless, I would have taken selfies with him!

Then after the talk, we stayed a little because I needed to like thank everyone and URSULA URIARTE attended our panel and ugggggh fangirl moments! Ursula is also a huge Jay Kristoff fan and she's so approachable so we hit it off right away! Thanks also to everyone who took notes and some selfies with me! Heart heart!

On behalf of the amazing ladies (thanks JM for the pic), thank you all for coming to see us! It was such an honor to be there sharing my tip and experiences about blogging and I still couldn't wrap my mind about the success of it! Stop don't doing what you love to do and just go for what makes you happy! No pressure, just have fun!

Thank you ever so much National Bookstore for having me. I can't thank you hard enough for making my bookish dreams come true!