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Fiction is escapism from reality. People from all walks of life especially girls ranging from teens to adults are fond of reading romance stories where they say they can find "forever." Back in the old days when paperback is the most common form of books, the continuous advancement of technology brought electronic book or e-book into the most widely used platform of reading. That's why Wattpad is very popular among readers and even writers.
According to wikipedia.org, Wattpad is a community for readers and writers where one can discover new user-generated stories, spanning across different genres. It aims at removing the traditional barriers between readers and writers by building social communities around stories.
As a Filipino, I am proud to say that Wattpad's most followed writer today is Jonaxx. As of now, she has over 2 Million followers surpassing Anna Todd (imaginator1d) who is a well-known international bestselling author. So far, Jonaxx is also the first Filipino Wattpad writer who gained over a million followers and the first author to be verified on Wattpad.
Born in January 23, 1991 as Jonahmae Panen Pacala, Jonaxx is a preschool teacher who is based in Cagayan de Oro City. She started writing at Creative Corner in candymag.com way back in 2003 when she was only 12 years of age. Since then, she attracted a number of readers who would patiently wait for each chapter of her stories to be uploaded and then express their comments in the discussion forum. Eventhough Jonaxx has a talent in writing, she instead pursue Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education at Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan. She said that while writing is her hobby, she likes kids that is why she wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.
It was November 2012 when Jonaxx created an account on Wattpad not as to write but to call out a certain person who had plagiarized her work from Creative Corner. She messaged this person asking to take down her story. The said person automatically deleted his/her account without even bother replying to Jonaxx. After this, Jonaxx started posting her stories on Wattpad, garnering millions of views or reads and thousands of votes per story.
Unlike other writers, Jonaxx is not fond of reading stories. She gets inspirations in writing from life experiences and classical songs. But she said that she had read Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling and Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James. She is also a fan of the world's top-rated HBO series Game of Thrones.
As we can see in her social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram, Jonaxx is an outgoing person who loves to travel. She enjoys going to beaches and watching movies especially Marvel movies.
Hailed as Queen J of Wattpad, her numerous fans called themselves as JSL, short for Jonaxx Stories Lovers. Everytime she has a booksigning event anywhere in the Philippines, the venue is always overcrowded.
Queen J's Mapapansin Kaya, Every Beast Needs A Beauty, Baka Sakali Trilogy and Heartless are published under Summit Book's Pop Fiction and Sizzle. She also has self-published books such as Until Trilogy, 24 Signs of Summer, One Night One Lie and Give In To You. Whether they were published by Summit Books or were self-published, Jonaxx's novels are all bestsellers. In fact, her books are always included in the top 10 bestselling local novels in National Bookstore when they were already out in the market.
Undeniably, Jonaxx is the most popular and bestselling Filipino romance novelist today. And she also proven herself having countless achievements in the field of writing. Last 2013, she won as Writer of the Year. On 2014, Jonaxx won Gawad Kasulatan and dubbed as the Summit Media Queen. She also bagged the Best Writer in the Watty's Best of the Best Awards 2017. Many of her novels also received recognitions in different award-giving bodies.
Just like any other author, Jonaxx has struggle in terms of writing. She said that writing the beginning of the story is for her the most difficult part. There were times she already knew the ending, climax, everything in between, but she didn't know how to start writing the story.
One of the reasons why Queen J is a very effective writer is because she writes her stories in a unique way. She writes them in the heroine's perspective, from prologue up to the final chapter. But the epilogue, Jonaxx always writes it in the male character's point of view. Isn’t it amazing and exciting to know the male lead's perspective at the end of the story? Well, for me, 100% it is.
As a gift to her supporters, Summit Books launched Majesty Press or MPress last July 2017. It is Jonaxx's own imprint wherein there is no restriction in terms of genre and she has more freedom with the length of her novels.
As the first offer under MPress, Jonaxx's Heartless is published again. This time uncut and with additional scenes and new cover. Worthless is also published and Training To Love will soon be published. Both also under MPress.
By popular demand, Queen J decided to self-publish her stories such as Scorching Love and Waves of Memories this year. Please watch out for these first two installments of her Costa Leona Series.
Although many of Jonaxx's works are already published, people can still read them on Wattpad. She is one of the few authors who didn't even bother to delete or cut some chapters of her stories once they are already on sale. She is very generous, isn't she? She is not afraid that her books might not do well in sales because people can still read them completely in Wattpad for free. Still, her novels sell a thousand of copies and even have them reprinted because of popular demand.
If you're a Wattpad user, I guess you already knew Jonaxx. Otherwise, you can check her works. I highly recommend her to you, guys. If you don't have anything to do and are fond of reading, her stories are worth your time. Thank you.