NEW MEDIA

Many of the comics shown on their website, including Para Fierra by Fidelis Tan and Kiko Dans
and Manosaur by Elbert Or, were previously distributed as printed zines at the biannual Komikon
convention. Adarna Digital, a division of the children's book publisher Adarna House that specializes in
developing interactive storybook applications or apps, has likewise made the switch from print to new
media. Two children's books—That Won't Make Me Sleep by Annie Pacaa-Lumbao and Araw sa
Palengke (Day at the Market) by May Tobias-Papa—were used as the prototype project in 2014. 2015
saw the release of a third book by Luis Gatmaitan, Raquel's Amazing Hair.

Before being transformed into interactive narrative media, each of these novels was first
published as print books. Commercial digital publishing and distribution is expanding. At least 30
percent of the Philippine population accesses information online and through mobile networks, a fact
that has pushed traditional print publications such as broadsheets, magazines, and book publishers to
make the leap from print to digital as well (IMMAP 2014).

Although both academic and commercial booksellers and developers have benefited greatly
from the rise of digital publication and distribution, one of the biggest beneficiaries on the digital
publication front is independent writers and creators. Independent digital literary publication in the
Philippines can be traced back to NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, an online writing
challenge that started in 1999 in the San Francisco Bay Area. During NaNoWriMo, participants are
challenged to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. This challenge has expanded and grown in the
last decade and a half, welcoming participants from all over the world.

Aspiring participants only need to register on the NaNoWriMo website, after which they can
begin posting chapters online and keeping track of their word count. The first draft of Dean Francis
Alfar’s Salamanca, 2006, which won the Carlos Palanca grand prize for the novel in 2005 and which was
subsequently published as a print book under Anvil Publishing, was completed as a NaNoWriMo
challenge the year before.

Blogs are a further means of self-publication. Many authors who found success in print, such
Jessica Zafra and Lourd de Veyra, became active writers online. The name "blog," which became popular
in 1999, is derived from the phrases "web" and "log." Zafra presently contributes a weekly piece to TV5's
online news outlet InterAksyon. De Veyra also contributes a regular column to Spot.PH called This Is a
Crazy Planets. In a fascinating reversal, a collection of essays with the same name that included
numerous writings from de Veyra's online column was released in 2011. Similar to the concept
underlying David and Endaya's Project Crumbs, digital publication has also created new opportunities for
collaborative storytelling.

Twitter, a microblogging site that allows users to post up to 140-character public messages has
been the favored site for very short fiction known as microfic or Twitterfic, or collaborative fiction
writing. One of the most popular annual collaborative writing events in the Philippines is #RP612fic, in
which contributors can post tweet-length stories often premised on a certain historical occasion, like
Independence Day on 12 June.

Sometimes humorous, hilarious, obscene, or incredible, it presents a snapshot of Philippine

popular culture as filtered through the lens of social media. Since 2009, Filipino writers and Twitter users
have participated in this annual event. Some contemporary writers in the Philippines transition back and
forth seamlessly from print to digital and back again. Authors such as genre writer Eliza Victoria and
Mina V. Esguerra, a noted writer of new adult and young adult novels, have both published books in
print, as well as online. Paolo Chikiamko, the controlling force behind #RP612fic, published his
Mythspace series of comics both as zines and online, finally compiling them in a print anthology and
releasing them under Visprint, an established publishing company.