[Book View] Sometimes, Boldly Let Go of the Bestseller

[Book Perspective: The World Through Books]
Korean Reading Culture Driven by Bookstore Trends
Best-Seller Lists Are Just Indicators?Find Your Own Taste

Every year, as the end and beginning of the year approach, all sorts of trend books dominate the bestseller lists. The ironic phenomenon of trend analysis itself becoming another trend has established itself as a natural year-end pattern.

However, to foreigners, this is quite an unfamiliar sight. The very idea of an entire nation following a single trend is unusual to them, and the act of analyzing that trend to align one's thinking is something they find particularly unfamiliar.

In the past, I once tried to identify the bestsellers and their popularity factors in various countries by interviewing ambassadors stationed in Korea. Since bestsellers encapsulate and concentrate a society's interests, I expected that understanding the underlying reasons could reveal the context of social interests at that point in time.

During these interviews with foreign ambassadors, they found it especially difficult to answer questions about bestsellers. They explained that the category of bestsellers is so broad that it is hard to narrow it down to a specific phenomenon. Notably, in Northern European countries with high happiness indices, people read a lot of literary works, and books about hobbies ranked high on the lists. One ambassador once cautiously expressed concern that, as in Korea, a situation where specific books dominate the bestseller lists could undermine diversity. That remark still leaves a deep impression on me.

Another issue with domestic bestsellers is that the selection is made by bookstores. In the United States, media outlets unrelated to book sales announce bestseller rankings, but in Korea, it is the major bookstores that sell books that determine the rankings. Since being included in the bestseller list itself leads to increased sales-a phenomenon known as the bestseller effect-there is a high risk that fairness will be compromised when parties with a vested interest in sales are involved. In practice, bookstores receive large quantities of trend bestsellers at low prices each year and strategically use high-visibility banner advertisements to boost profitability. If sales are sluggish, they may place the books at the front of displays and attach staff recommendation notes to artificially create bestsellers.

It is true that bestsellers are a powerful marketing tool in the English-speaking world and Europe as well, but the tendency for everyone to flock to the same books is not as pronounced as it is in Korea. Perhaps both bestsellers and trend books stem from a fear of breaking away from standardized thinking. Although society has come to actively encourage individuality and uniqueness, it is worth considering whether the desire to exist comfortably as "just one among the crowd" is reflected in the bestseller phenomenon.

The problem is that this phenomenon, driven by the "bandwagon effect," hinders genuine reading. The bandwagon effect, a concept introduced by economist Harvey Leibenstein, refers to the idea that as demand for a particular good increases, that very fact generates additional demand from others. In other words, it creates anxiety by suggesting, "Everyone else is reading that book-are you really not going to read it?" Rather than encouraging positive reading, this anxiety about not falling behind the trend may boost book sales and reading rates, but it does not contribute to meaningful reading. A healthy reading life begins with the understanding that "a bestseller is merely a natural indicator of social reading trends, not a compass for reading." This winter, let's make an effort to find books that suit our own tastes, rather than just following the bestsellers. After all, there is no need to align even your reading preferences with those of others.