By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
"Pieces of You", written by pop group Epik High frontman
Tablo, has topped bestseller lists in recent months, shoulder-to-shoulder with veteran novelists.
The number of books penned by celebrities has soared dramatically from last year. According to the publication industry, the number of books by stars increased by five percent last year. Celebrities such as comedienne
Jo Hye-ryeon, actor
Shin Hyeon-joon, actress
Bae Doona and hip-hop group Big Bang are rushing to write, breathing fresh air into the publication industry.
It's nothing new for celebrities to be published, but the genre has grown
increasingly varied and one might wonder why such books are becoming increasingly popular.
"Even in the past, stars had books published from time to time but they were more about their personal love stories in the form of essays. Nowadays, their books are increasingly diverse and professional in content and genre", said Kim Hyun-jung, a member of the promotional team at Kyobo Bookstore.
In fact, they are expanding their horizons to novels, travel essays, language studies and even religion.
Tablo's success with his first published collection of short stories, "Pieces of You", features 10 he wrote while living in the United States from 1998 to 2001.
Due to his academic background ― he studied English and creative writing at Stanford ― he originally wrote the stories in English and translated them into Korean.
Building her career in Japan, Korean comedienne
Jo Hye-ryeon has recently released a Japanese language study book, "Break Up Japanese", based on her language acquisition and life in Japan. She studied the Japanese language by herself and two years after her Japanese debut, she became a co-hostess of an NHK program.
Comedian Kim Young-chul published English study guide "Brave Young-chul English" and will release a second English study book early this year. He also studied alone and offers language acquisition advice.
Actor
Shin Hyeon-joon, a devout Christian, wrote "
Shin Hyeon-joon's Confession", a reflection on his past and religious life.
Actor
Hong Seok-cheon, who revealed he was gay eight years ago, is a renowned celebrity
businessman with several popular restaurants in Itaewon and recently released "Designing My Own Restaurant", a guide to operating successful restaurants.
Actress
Bae Doona's "Doona's Seoul" has topped the travel section for a few months. It is the third in her series of travel photo essays, following "Doona's London" and "Doona's Tokyo".
An avid fan of photography, Baek Sung-hyun, known as the rapper from pop group Koyote, has recently published a photo essay of his life titled "Talking to You".
Notably, five-member group Big Bang will publish the self-help book "Shout Out to World", to be released on Jan. 28, which offers their success strategies for going from apprentices to iconic idol band members. Each member wrote a chapter about his goals and surviving the cutthroat competition of show business.
"We've rejected many proposals from publishers because we didn't want to rely solely on brand recognition or follow the autobiographical trend, which seemed to be geared only for profit", YG Entertainment, the group's agency, said.
But Big Bang's new book is trying to offer something different from the previous star-authored books, offering guidelines and advice aimed at those aged 10-20 who lack goals.
"In our book, each member wrote a personal history and
Kim Se-ah compiled and edited the stories", the agency said.
Actor
Cha In-pyo is currently writing a fairytale for children, "Goodbye, Hill (working title)", to be published in the first half of this year.
The boom in celebrity publication is attributed to the efforts of the stars themselves, whose social status has been enhanced.
"Readers are curious about their (celebrities) works, such as Bae's photo travel book and
Tablo's short story collection, as they can peer into their thoughts and share their experiences and learn something", said Kyobo Bookstore representative Kim, adding that the various efforts of the stars are appealing to general audiences by making good use of their knowledge and experience.
"Readers are changing. Gossip and personal love stories are no longer of interest nor do readers read books solely because of who their authors are", she went on.
However, she said the economic recession is undeniably affecting the publication industry _ part of the reason for the increase in the popularity of celebrity authors.
"Many publishers don't want to risk publishing books by unknown writers in these economically difficult times", she said.
But not every celebrity-written book is a hit. "If a book is of poor quality, it will be shunned by readers and the writer's reputation will be negatively affected", Kim said.
