Peeking at novels through YouTube

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Publishers create YouTube channels to lure millennials

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Park Sang-young, author of “The Way Urbanites Love” released by Changbi Publishing in July, wanders around Seoul's Itaewon area and other trendy destinations, which were featured in his novels.

He appeared in four videos which were uploaded in the publisher's YouTube channel, “Changbi TV.”

The Itaewon video went viral, amassing over 10,000 views in just four days.

The figure is impressive considering that Changbi's YouTube channel launched in March 2017 and since then their videos have only been viewed around 415,000 times.

In the Itaewon video, Park roams the streets and talks about his experiences and how each venue he visits is related to his novel. A small eatery selling ramen 24 hours a day and a gay bar are two of the venues he hit.

“The Way Urbanites Love” is Park's second book since he made his literary debut in 2016 when he won a Munhakdongne Literary Award.

His new book is a collection of four fiction novels, including the same title fiction which revolves around a gay couple.

To celebrate their 200 day anniversary, the narrator and his partner Kyuho agree to travel Japan.

However, after realizing at the airport that he has taken his old, expired passport, he tells his partner to go to Japan alone, suggesting that he “explore Japanese men” if he wanted to.

Author Park said his novels are both fictional and factual.

It is fictional in that he created characters and circumstances through which the two men meet and develop their relationship. He said his fiction novel also has some factual elements because his characters are based on his personal experiences and what he heard from friends and acquaintances. “So, it's a mixture of both facts and fiction,” he said.

Park said he is familiar with Itaewon because he spent a lot of time hanging out with his friends there when he was in his twenties. “I drank a lot at that time, and would visit this small tiny eatery selling ramen whenever I wanted to eat something spicy. So I used to come over here late at night maybe after midnight. The eatery reminds me of those days,” he said pointing out the restaurant tucked away in the corner of the street.

Park said Itaewon has changed a lot over the past decade. “There were some franchised restaurants here about 10 years ago, but not as many as there are today,” he said. “Itaewon is now seen as a big city which is both good and bad. I regret we are missing something as the district undergoes gentrification.”

Going digital has become the new norm for publishing houses wanting to attract younger readers.

Growing up in the digital era, millennials are watching more videos, instead of reading, to get information.

Munhakdongne Publishing Group jumped on the YouTube bandwagon this March and over 30,000 people have subscribed to their channel.

Gimm-Young Publishers is a pioneer in this digital strategy. Its YouTube channel opened in 2014, attracting nearly 1.3 million subscribers.

Publishers also sponsor star YouTubers to promote their books.

Some YouTube influencers have a real impact on the book market. Gary Marcus's book “Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind” which was recently translated into Korean saw a dramatic sales boost after a YouTuber,

YouTuber “Self-Claimed Life Hacker,” recommended it for his viewers as one of the five must read books that can change their lives. Over 8,000 copies were sold within two weeks.

It made online bookstore Yes 24's top 10 best-selling books of the fourth week of July. Self-Claimed Life Hacker has some 67,000 subscribers.

Seven out of 20 best-selling books were those promoted by YouTube influencers.

An executive of a Seoul-based publishing house said publishers will benefit from the digital strategy, noting the effects will be varied depending on publishers.

“We publish picture books. At the moment, we're not convinced that YouTube channels or other social media-based marketing would make a huge difference in the sales of our products,” she said. “But for other publishers which produce novels, I think social media-based marketing could benefit them a lot. I was told some best-selling writers are keen to promote their novels through social media. If authors do that, I think they and their publishers will gain.”

For small publishers, she said going digital is not an easy task. “It's a money talk,” she said.

If a publisher is going to run a YouTube channel, she said, this requires additional money to hire experts. “Many publishers are going through tough times these days because books are not so popular. So they could find it harder to invest in social media-based marketing.”

Authors' or publishers' YouTube previews of books or fiction novels help readers easily follow their stories and makes them easier to decide whether they buy it or not.

Authors interact with readers directly through YouTube videos. Viewers have left hundreds of messages on the YouTube channels.

Going digital also signified a shift in authors' ways of working. In the past, some authors chose to lock themselves away whenever they worked on novels. Authors were portrayed as hermits because writing requires a great deal of concentration from start to finish.

In the digital era, authors being hermits or hiding themselves from the public eye to fully focus on their writing work is no longer considered a merit. They are facing calls to interact with readers.