[Viewpoint] The Lie of Autumn: The Season of Reading

"The season when books sell the least is autumn." This is what I heard recently from a successful publisher executive. Autumn, the season of abundance when grains ripen and even horses gain weight, is said to be a tough time for the publishing industry. I was surprised because this contradicted my common sense. Autumn is the season for reading. I had heard this so often since childhood that I naturally assumed people read more books then. But the reality was the opposite.

For example, looking at last year's book sales: the month with the highest book sales was March, the beginning of the new school semester in spring (sales amounting to 174.1 billion won). Next were December (153.5 billion won) and January (153.5 billion won), the winter vacation months. July (150.8 billion won), with summer vacation and holidays, followed. The average sales for autumn months?September, October, and November?were 136.8 billion won, the lowest among the four seasons. In fact, autumn was the season when the least books were read. This was also true last year.

In the publishing industry, the marketing phrase "autumn is the season for reading" was created to encourage some reading during the seasonal low sales period. Those who thought many books were read in autumn were misled by marketing and failed to make an accurate judgment. One reason books don’t sell well in autumn is that publishers do not release eye-catching new titles then. They release books ambitiously prepared for summer and winter vacation and school opening seasons. Because books don’t sell, they don’t release new ones. With no new books, a vicious cycle of poor sales continues.

There is a saying that the campaign "autumn is the season for reading" started during the Japanese colonial period. Historian Seol Min-seok appeared on tvN’s 2019 show "These Days Bookstore: I Read Books for You" and said, "In 1925, Japan built libraries and forced our people to read Japanese books, using the slogan ‘autumn is the season for reading.’" The purpose was to make people read books written in Japanese.

However, even in ancient times, autumn was considered a season for reading. There is a four-character idiom, deunghwaga-chin (燈火可親), meaning "the light of a lamp is pleasant to be near." It implies that after summer ends and the weather cools, one can read by lamplight without feeling hot. This phrase comes from a passage in a letter by Han Yu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, to his son. In other words, the Tang Dynasty’s version of the slogan "autumn is the season for reading." If the son is close to books, there is no need to explicitly tell him to read. It seems Han Yu elegantly told his son, who was likely out enjoying autumn outings, to read some books. Probably, even in the Tang Dynasty, books did not sell well in autumn.

In the West, autumn is also the season for reading. Since 1919, the United States has designated one week in November as "Children’s Book Week" to promote reading. Similar events are held worldwide in countries such as Canada, Australia, and Scotland. Japan has held a "Reading Week" every year from October 27 to November 9, centered around the public holiday Culture Day (November 3), since 1947, campaigning to encourage reading. September is designated as Reading Month under the Reading Culture Promotion Act. To mark Reading Month, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism holds about 10,000 reading culture events nationwide for a month, focusing on libraries, 17 local governments, and education offices, highlighting regional characteristics.

In most cases, when my thoughts differ from the truth, I feel embarrassed or even angry. But when I learned that autumn is the season when people read the least, I felt more ashamed than angry. No one ever said books sell well in autumn. I had made a wrong assumption on my own. Since no one openly talks about it, I suspect it might be intentional. But if I had read books continuously throughout the year without a break, I would have realized that people are less inclined to read in autumn. This autumn, I should try to read some books.