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August 21, 2009
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After news broke of Kim’s passing on Tuesday afternoon, the number of books sold written either by him or about him soared. Yes24, an online bookstore, said the book with the highest increase in the number of sales so far after his death was “Again, For a New Start,” authored by Kim and published in 2005. The book saw an average of 0.3 copies sold daily until his death, when the daily average jumped to 29 copies on Tuesday, 82 copies on Wednesday and 16 copies yesterday as of 9:50 a.m. The book is an autobiographical essay Kim wrote after he lost the Republic of Korea’s 14th presidential election. He had announced he would retire from the political world and went to the University of Cambridge to do research. The book is a vessel through which he shares his life’s wisdom with young people as a mentor rather than a politician. Until Kim’s death, hardly any copies of “Learning: Kim Dae-jung Maxims,” the late former president’s most recent book, published in 2007, were sold per day at Yes24. The day after his death, however, 70 copies flew out. There are now four books written by the late former president himself and 21 written with co-authors or by other authors about him, according to Kyobo Book Centre. “Since the books hardly sold even a week ago, we hadn’t prepared many copies,” said Jang Seon-hee from Aladdin, an online bookstore. “Local publishers are expecting that there will be more people asking for orders, so they are planning on printing more copies of the originals or different editions.” Meanwhile, when the late former president Roh Moo-hyun, Kim’s political successor, died in late May, local booksellers increased the number of printed copies of his autobiographies. While Yes24 hadn’t sold even one copy daily of “Honey, Help Me,” written by Roh, in the eight days before his death, the online bookseller moved 7,910 copies in the eight days after the former president committed suicide. By Lee Eun-joo [angie@joongang.co.kr] |
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