VOL.69/2024.04

The Uncanny Convenience Store’s Magical Journey in Taiwan

2023.04.03

Popular Korean novel Uncanny Convenience Store (Namu Bench) has experienced a very magical journey in Taiwan. Before publishing the book in Taiwan, Solo Press (寂寞出版社) had published Please Look After Mom (Changbi) with a relatively serious and heavy topic as well as Dallergut Dream Department Store (Sam & Parkers), a bestselling novel in Korea.

* K-Book Trends Vol. 46 – Go to the article about Dallergut Dream Department Store’s successful import into Taiwan

Unlike Please Look After Mom, the two books, Dallergut Dream Department Store and Uncanny Convenience Store, are relatively simply-written, talking about things close to our daily lives. Above all, they are so-called “healing novels” with humanistic elements, which support the hearts of readers going through hardships driven by the pandemic. With the publishing experience and success of Dallergut Dream Department Store in Taiwan, Solo Press also decided to release Uncanny Convenience Store in the market.
Around the time of that decision, society forced the public to follow all sorts of rules and regulations in response to the pandemic. And in the daunting situation where the number of confirmed cases seemed to increase continually, the “stress of an inconvenient life” has worsened. Here, Solo Press hoped to console and encourage people to have hope through warm stories like Dallergut Dream Department Store and Uncanny Convenience Store. The promotional phrase for Uncanny Convenience Store mainly reflects this hope as well.

1. Good artistic elements for a good story

While putting heads together for the cover design of Uncanny Convenience Store, Solo Press chose to use the Korean version, as it looked quite delicate and fun. And this decision greatly helped to give a strong impression to the public about the book throughout other global marketing channels.
Just like how one of the Taiwanese readers said, “Uncanny Convenience Store is like a Korean drama,” more people in Taiwan are taking an interest in Korean cultural items, which is also affected by the active export of Korean dramas to Taiwan. Thanks to this, Uncanny Convenience Store, a book full of daily stories, was immediately put under the spotlight as soon as it was published, being shared¹⁾ on numerous Social Media. Artistic elements like its beautiful cover design and illustration also added greater joy.

2. Items in the book have gone viral

Many people helped with the advertisement of Uncanny Convenience Store. First of all, with the keen insight from the marketing team, many famous influencers in Taiwan shared their opinions about the book. We also drew enthusiastic support from our readers by collecting heartwarming episodes related to convenience stores through a contest held on Social Media. Also, some readers did a transcription of beautiful phrases from the book that they thought were interesting, and some readers even recorded a part for a podcast or took a video of them and shared it with us.
Along with the “convenience store challenge” that began with beautiful photographs shared by our readers, the marketing team turned into “night-shift staff” like the protagonist in the book and actively communicated with our fans. As a result, by the third quarter, Uncanny Convenience Store became a bestselling translated novel on several large channels – it even got the glorious title of “the Korean novel with the fastest sales record.”

Thanks to our co-workers’ efforts and the engaging artistic elements of the cover, Uncanny Convenience Store could have many chances regarding display as soon as it was published while collaborating with stores across various channels for special displays. This offered an environment where more readers could take and share photographs, drawing more community feedback. Thanks to this, we could also draw interest from media outlets for this new novel that caused a sales boom in Taiwan and Korea.²⁾

3. A Korean novel that kept its place as soon as it became a bestseller

Since its publication in September 2022, Uncanny Convenience Store was added to the bestseller list of major channels and put its name on the top sales list announced by various channels at the end of the year.

The book’s popularity led to heightened curiosity about writer Kim Ho-Yeon. He expressed his gratitude to Taiwanese readers through a short video on the occasion of being selected for Taiwan's annual bestseller list. In addition, he talked about his feelings³⁾ and story-writing process in an international interview with Books.com.⁴⁾
Also, writer Kim even pressed “Like” on the shared postings of Taiwanese readers as he saw their posts on Taiwanese Social Media drawing a hot response from the audience since the book’s Taiwanese edition was published. So, taking the chance, Solo Press contacted him and found out he plans to visit Taiwan. So, we got to organize an event for him to meet and communicate with Taiwanese readers by cooperating with his Korean publishing agency.

* K-Book Trends Vol. 44 – Go to the interview with Kim Ho-Yeon

As a result, writer Kim’s visit to Taiwan was confirmed last March, the season of blooming cherry blossoms, and we could prepare the cherry blossom edition of the book as a part of its beautiful four-season edition. Furthermore, as the bookstores’ special event period overlapped with the publication of this edition commemorating the writer’s visit to Taiwan, we could also have some time to communicate with readers offline through the Collection Dunnan (典藏敦南) feature of Honesy (诚品信义), the biggest offline bookstore in Taiwan.

Writer Kim provided us with a quality video that talked about a variety of episodes, including how he overcame a slump and got the idea for the book. The sales success followed afterward, positive reviews from readers, the selection of various organizations as the book of the year, and love calls from so many people and organizations after the book’s success. He also shared with us the news that he is preparing to publish The Uncanny Convenience Store 2, a sequel that wasn’t planned then.
At the book concert, joined by readers across various age groups, writer Kim spared time to thank each of them, gave them an autograph, took an interest in the readers’ feelings about the book, and communicated with them. He said that he was surprised by the fact that Uncanny Convenience Store in Taiwan has many male fans, as the majority of the fan base in Korea is women. Also, the staff members at the bookstores prepared a guided tour for him as he wanted to look around various bookstores in Taiwan after the book concert. And through the trip, writer Kim said that it was a rare experience to see so many people participating in an event that introduces a Korean book, as well as the high popularity of a Korean novel in the country.

Even though it was a short afternoon meeting, writer Kim Ho-Yeon was impressed by the warm welcome of Taiwanese readers. He said that he was very happy to come to Taiwan as the first fan-meeting country since the book’s publication. He hopes to have the time to interact with Taiwanese readers again after publishing Uncanny Convenience Store 2. It is highly anticipated as the magical journey of Uncanny Convenience Store has many more stories to come.

Images and explanations provided by ChengHsiaoWei (郑晓薇) (Solo Press (寂寞出版社))
Written by Yuli Chu (朱玉立) (Solo Press (寂寞出版社))