How Sidney Sheldon changed Jacqueline Ng’s life
Jacqueline Ng, co-founder and director of Big Bad Wolf Books, is not afraid to share the very first novel she eagerly consumed at age 14: it was Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes.
“So I had this classmate who was always reading novels. At 14, I couldn’t comprehend, what is so interesting about reading? So during recess time, she was just devouring this book, and it was the final chapter. I could see her expression when she finished the chapter: (sighs). So I asked her, ‘Why are you so engrossed?’ And she’s like, ‘Why don’t you read it?’”
So Jacqueline did. “True enough, I was reading it day and night, like when I was having dinner, before I’d sleep, any free time I had.”
That formative experience led Ng to eventually envision the Malaysian company that sells affordable books to 17 worldwide markets, especially Southeast Asia. “I realized how books can be pleasurable—they can take you to a different place, let you imagine things. It opens up your mind to places you’ve never been before, or a different era of time—like time travel.”
But for most people in Southeast Asia, books are still a luxury. Parents don’t necessarily encourage buying and reading books. “They need that introduction,” Ng says, remembering her 14-year-old entry point.
Setting up at Virra Mall’s 2nd Floor, where The World’s Biggest Book Sale returns from May 23 to June 2, you can see that Big Bad Wolf’s marketing helps them encourage a new generation of readers. Book booths are labeled with catchy pitches—“As Seen on TikTok,” “Top 10 Best-Selling Children’s Books,” “Cheaper Than a Babysitter, and Way Quieter”—and the editions are vibrant and colorful. The annual event, which has moved from the SMX Convention Center for this year’s edition, promises huge bargains—“Up to 95% on English Books,” “Books As Low as P60.”
“We started with a very simple mission, which is to increase literacy and to basically make reading affordable and accessible, so that we could reach out especially to people from the lower income group,” says Ng.
But of course, the book market has faced lots of challenges since Big Bad Wolf began 19 years ago. The digital era shifted eyes to screens, away from the printed page. It’s damn near exterminated the desire among current generations to pick up a book. But Ng sees it also as a challenge accepted: “I think it’s kind of forced publishers to evolve, where you can see they have to put a lot more effort in building the contents (of books), make them interactive, interesting. There’s more effort in making sure the illustrations, the colors, the subject matter works.”
She saw another shift during the annual World’s Biggest Book Sale event, about five years in: “In the first years, I’d sell so few young adult books. Literally, they didn’t move, because you cannot force a teenager to read.” But by the fifth year, there was a huge spike in YA sales. She asked her business partner husband, “Why the shift this year? Then I realized that the kids that were with us five years ago, they were growing up and they’d become readers themselves. And they wanted books they could relate to. And it came first with the parents feeding them books.”
The reading audience grows up, and want new ways to feed the imagination.
It’s an encouraging tale for an industry that often seems like it’s besieged by a plague of online ADHD. Maybe that’s why Ng’s hashtag slogan for the company has long been “Changing the World, One Book at a Time.”
The Virra Mall launch commenced with a gift pack from The Journaling Nest, which supplies stickers, a pen, notebook, bookmark, and lots of ways to set down your own inspirations on paper. Expect similar activities for kids and parents at the upcoming book sale. Maybe feeding kids books while encouraging them to pursue their own imaginations will lead to the next generation of writers, journalists and creatives in our midst.
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Check out the The World’s Biggest Book Sale presented by Big Bad Wolf Books from May 23 to June 2 at 2nd Floor, Virra Mall, Greenhills. Admission is free, so come and browse.
