'The Time of Jo Guk' Enters Yes24's First Half Bestsellers at 5th Place with Only 5 Days of Sales

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] Former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk's memoir, Cho Kuk's Time, ranked 5th among Yes24's bestsellers for the first half of the year with sales recorded in just five days.

Yes24 announced on the 3rd that an analysis of bestsellers and book sales trends for the first half of the year (January to May) showed these results.

Cho Kuk's Time was published on the 27th of last month and was available for pre-order. The next day, it entered Yes24's weekly comprehensive bestseller list at number one. With only five days of sales through the 31st of the same month, it ranked 5th in the comprehensive bestseller list for the first half of the year.

Publisher Hangilsa announced that including pre-order requests from the previous day, sales of Cho Kuk's Time surpassed 100,000 copies. It also ranked high on major online bookstores such as Kyobo Bookstore, Yes24, Aladin, and Interpark.

According to Yes24's data, the best-selling book for the first half of this year was fantasy novel The Dollar Gut Dream Department Store by author Im Mi-ye. Since becoming a bestseller in October last year, it has remained in the top 10 for about 30 consecutive weeks, attracting readers.

The beginner's guide to stock investment, Top 77 Most Asked Questions by Stock Beginners, ranked 2nd, and 2030 Axis Shift, which provides insight into social changes, took 3rd place, showing strong performance in economic and business books. Dr. Oh Eun-young, known as the "National Childcare Mentor," ranked 4th with How Should I Talk to You?

Looking at the distribution of books in the top 100 bestsellers by category, the economic and business category had the most titles with 22. This was followed by children’s books (14), novels/poetry/plays (13), Korean/foreign languages/dictionaries (10), and self-development (8).

By category, middle and high school study guides held the largest share of sales at 17.8%, maintaining the top spot from last year. The category with the largest year-on-year sales increase was economic and business, with a growth rate of 52.2%. Collections and humanities categories decreased by 14% compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, Yes24 presented the following keywords as publishing trends for the first half of this year: ▲ Comfort and Empathy ▲ Financial Technology Sellers ▲ Revival of Comics ▲ Homebound Cultural Life ▲ IT Self-Development.