Bookseller says Korean readers favor fiction titles in 2013

A Buddhist monk’s meditative title grabbed the top slot on the national bestseller list for two straight years, Kyobo Book Centre said on Tuesday.

“Things You Can Finally See When You Stop,” authored by Ven. Haemin, ranked first on the list compiled by the country’s biggest bookseller. The Korean edition of Francois Lelord’s “Hector and the Search for Happiness” was the No. 2 bestseller this year.

Kyobo said readers favored both offline and online novels this year. For digital books, novels accounted for 62 percent of sales, with “Life of Pi” topping the ebook bestseller list. Overall, ebook sales rose by 27 percent, bucking the broader trend of sluggish sales of books on the local market.

Also popular were a group of novels which have been adapted for TV and film versions. Titles focused on “healing” also continued to perform at a solid pace.

Kyobo has forecasted that the domestic ebook market will grow by 20 percent in 2004, citing the increase in book purchases via PCs and smartphones.

By Yoon Ha-youn, Intern reporter

(yhayoun@heraldcorp.com)