[Weekend Publications] Song Hee-gu on the bestseller run — “My Boss Kim’s Story About a Samsung Exec at Home in Seoul” Tops the Charts Immediately With New Real Estate Novel

The publishing industry’s landscape is in flux. The seemingly impenetrable bastion of previously solid bestsellers is crumbling under a barrage from authors armed with massive fandom followings. At the center of this shift is Song Hee-gu, the writer who previously sparked a sensation by depicting the harsh realities office workers face.

A bookstore shake-up driven by “fandom economics”

According to Kyobo Bookstore’s second-week-of-June bestseller tally, Song’s new work, My First Real Estate Textbook, took top spot across the board the moment it was released. The strategy hit the mark: by weaving high-wall real estate knowledge into distinctive fictional storytelling, it quickly quenched the public’s intellectual thirst.

This ranking chart is proof of the overwhelming power of so-called fandom sellers. After a period of stagnation, the top charts regained momentum as authors with firm, loyal fan bases returned. A YouTuber Lee Kyung-jin, who vividly captured life as a Canadian immigrant, surged straight to No. 2 with Richmond Hill’s Two-Story Bus. Meanwhile, Oh Gun-young’s Fork in the Road of Wealth, which sharply traces macroeconomic currents, also secured a spot at No. 5—cementing its standing as a knowledge curator.

A sports boom also spread into the bookstore market. As if to prove the fervor surrounding professional baseball—drawing crowds on an unprecedented scale—Bears outfielder Jung Soo-bin’s essay Soo-bin’s Doosan Doosan Soo-bin entered the top 10, showcasing unusual ripple effects.

[Kyobo Bookstore Week 2 of June — Key Rankings]

1. My First Real Estate Textbook (Song Hee-gu·Seosamdok)

2. Richmond Hill’s Two-Story Bus (Lee Kyung-jin·Book Pleasure)

3. Knowledge Briefing for Conversations With Dignity (Kim Jin·Book Pleasure)

4. Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse·Minumsa)

5. Fork in the Road of Wealth (Oh Gun-young·Forest Books)

6. Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir·RH Korea)

7. Nietzsche’s Overman (Friedrich Nietzsche·Heeut)

8. Inner Strength (Jim Murphy·Will Books)

9. Hello, That’s What I Said (Kim Ae-ran·Munhakdongne)

10. Soo-bin’s Doosan Doosan Soo-bin (Jung Soo-bin·Brain Store)