Books can do more than tell stories. They can create opportunities.
PIF Philippines began with a simple idea: what if publishing could pay it forward?
Every book begins with someone who has something to say. Somewhere else is a reader waiting to discover it. Between those two people are editors, translators, designers, narrators, technology, distribution and opportunity.
We want to bring those pieces together.
PIF Philippines is being built as a home for Filipino writers and creators, while also opening the door to authors from around the world. Our goal is to make professional publishing tools and international distribution more accessible—not only for established writers, but for talented people who may never have believed that publishing a book was within their reach.
And we want to do something different with the success that follows.
PIF stands for Pay It Forward.
For us, those aren’t simply words beneath a logo. They are the reason this project exists.
As PIF grows, the proceeds generated through our publishing activities will help us build more opportunities in the Philippines. We envision a program where success creates more success: books help authors, authors help build PIF, and PIF helps create projects that benefit Filipino communities.
That may begin with something as simple as giving a writer the tools to publish a first book. In time, it can become much more.
We envision supporting educational opportunities, creative projects, technology, food and agricultural initiatives, and new ideas conceived by Filipinos themselves. Some projects may be modest. Others may become far more ambitious. What matters is that the resources generated by PIF continue moving forward.
Filipino stories deserve a global audience.
One of our greatest ambitions is to help remove the barriers created by language.
A talented Filipino author should not be limited to one market simply because their book was written in Tagalog. Likewise, books written elsewhere in the world should have the opportunity to reach Filipino readers in their own language.
Translation, digital publishing and new technologies are making that possible in ways that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.
PIF intends to embrace those technologies while never forgetting the people behind them.
Technology is the tool.
People are the purpose.
Built on transparency
If PIF asks writers, readers and partners to believe in this idea, then we believe they deserve to see how it works.
As the organization develops, PIF Philippines intends to make its operating finances transparent, including revenues, operating costs and the funds available for projects in the Philippines. Individual authors’ private earnings will, of course, remain private.
We don’t expect people simply to trust a promise.
We want to earn that trust.
This is only the beginning.
Today, PIF Philippines may look like a collection of books and a growing group of people with an idea.
Tomorrow, we hope it looks very different.
We hope there are hundreds—and eventually thousands—of Filipino authors participating. We hope readers around the world discover writers they otherwise would never have encountered. We hope translators, narrators, designers, programmers and other creative people find opportunities here as well.
Most of all, we hope that somewhere down the road, someone benefits from a PIF project who has never met any of us and never purchased one of our books.
Because somebody bought a story.
Because an author was given an opportunity.
Because one person helped another, who helped another.
That is the idea behind PIF Philippines.
Books. Knowledge. Opportunities.
Pay It Forward.