VOL.94/2026.05

 

Expanding the World of Books Through Book-Themed Merchandise

 

2025.12.01

 

The craze for book-themed merchandise

 

At bookstores and book fairs across the country, what catches the eye as much as the books themselves these days is book-themed merchandise. From bookmarks, postcards, and stickers to keyrings, T-shirts, book covers, incense, and drip-bag coffee, objects orbiting around books have now become a form of publishing content in their own right. According to Kyobo Book Centre’s statistics, sales of reading accessories in 2024 rose by 28% compared to the previous year. The trend was evident at this year’s Seoul International Book Fair (SIBF), where nearly every publisher’s booth displayed merchandise beside their books, and readers purchased these items with enthusiasm equal to the books themselves.
Some criticize this shift, arguing that merchandise is overshadowing books and accelerating the commercialization of publishing. However, the phenomenon deserves a broader perspective. Merchandise does not replace books; rather, it becomes a medium that carries the reader’s desire to linger longer in the act of reading - another doorway into the world of the books. For those who make books, such items are not mere cute or aesthetic novelties, but new channels for storytelling that strengthen the bond between books and readers.

 

Merchandise-driven new reading culture and consumption patterns

 

The popularity of book-themed merchandise is not a fleeting trend. It is reshaping the publishing market by creating a new mode of consumption. Today’s readers do more than simply read: they copy favorite lines, and they want to keep something close that preserves the feeling of a memorable scene. This desire manifests as merchandise - becoming a new motivation for purchasing books and a device for remembering them longer. Large bookstores are expanding their own merchandise lines, while publishers and independent bookstores are designing and selling items linked to their titles, broadening the market. Online bookstore Aladin exemplifies this shift: it continues to release its own merchandise - book-shaped pillows, paperweights, book covers, keyrings - that visually interpret the worlds of its books. As a result, a loyal customer base has emerged, one that “buys the book to get the merchandise.” This is not merely auxiliary sales, but a case in which merchandise has expanded the points of contact between readers and the publishing industry.

 

 

The paid membership program of Minumsa Publishing, “Minum Bookclub,” draws attention every year with its exclusive merchandise packages. This year’s standout item - the “Correct Korean Keyring (바른말 키링)” - is a miniature book designed to be attached to a bag, featuring proper Korean spelling and usage. The tiny keyring encourages readers to practice pure Korean expressions naturally in daily life and has been noted as a case in which love for books and language takes tangible form. Bookclub merchandise offers more than the pleasure of owning limited editions. It creates a sense of belonging among members who share a special, exclusive experience, strengthening trust and affection toward the brand. Over time, this emotional connection builds a structure that leads to long-term brand loyalty and repeat purchases.

 

 

Across book fairs nationwide, merchandise is far more than promotional material. Small items - postcards, stickers, and notebooks - become revenue sources for small publishers and an essential first point of contact with new readers. These modest objects visually express a publisher’s sensibility and act as windows through which readers encounter their work. Ultimately, merchandise is evolving into a mechanism that not only attracts readers and enriches the reading experience, but also forms a new pattern of consumption within the publishing ecosystem.

 

 

Examples of book-themed merchandise that expanded reading experience

 

Book-themed merchandise has become a new language for publishers as well. While the central task in the past was “making a good book,” now the critical question has become “how to shape the reader’s experience of the book.” Merchandise is an experimental answer to that question. The online culture in which readers post “merchandise purchase proof shots” that effectively serve as book reviews fosters reader communities, around which natural fandoms emerge. Merchandise also enables a diversification of publishing business models. Beyond generating additional revenue through direct production and sales, publishers now engage in brand collaborations, pop-up stores, subscription-linked products, and other experiments within the merchandise ecosystem. This shift signals the expansion of books into a broader cultural-content platform. If merchandise has changed the relationship between publisher and reader, that change is now extending into the reading experience itself.
When a single line from a book becomes a postcard, when a character’s emotion becomes a scent, or when the mood of a scene becomes a T-shirt or a cup of coffee, the reader feels the book again - through their fingertips. Reading experience based on merchandise goes beyond owning a book: it keeps the book’s world close in everyday life, extends the sensory experience of reading, and becomes a way for readers to express their literary taste. For example, Changbi Publishers opened the pop-up store “SICNIC” last year to celebrate the 500th issue of Changbi Sisun. The store showcased a wide range of limited-edition merchandise - glass cups engraved with lines of poetry, keyrings, pens, memo pads, and more. These items, which drew on the lines and cover designs of poetry collections, created a light, friendly entry point for younger readers to encounter poetry.

 

 

Workroom Press collaborated with the caf? Namusairo to pair 6 titles from its literary series PROPOSITIONS with 6 types of coffee, creating drip-bag packs printed with lines from each book. The idea was to encourage readers to recall the world of the book through the aroma of coffee, extending the act of reading into a sensory experience woven into daily life. This experiment illustrates how merchandise can propose a lifestyle to be enjoyed alongside books.

 

 

Book-themed merchandise has now moved beyond the domain of publishers and bookstores. Small brands related to books and book-reading lifestyles have begun to emerge; the merchandise created through collaborations between these brands and publishers invites readers and brand fans alike into different reading worlds. The fashion brand Traktat, which makes “book-like clothes for readers,” collaborated with Munhakdongne Publishing for the 2024 SIBF, and made graphic T-shirts themed on authors from the World Literature Series. It was a kind of a “TOUR T-shirt,” evoking the merchandise of famous musicians. Designed for readers who want to express their tastes and interests even without carrying the book, the shirts received an outpouring of love immediately after their release.

 

 

As such, merchandise expands the personal experience of reading into a social one. On Social Media, readers share photos of books alongside their merchandise, creating a culture of expressing their tastes - one that is giving rise to new reading communities. In this process, merchandise becomes more than a marketing tool; it becomes a sensory gateway through which readers experience a book’s identity and worldview. Items that connect naturally with that world should not be dismissed as substitutes for books. Their role is to carry the emotional resonance of a book into everyday life even after the last page is closed. That, ultimately, is the simplest and most powerful strength of book-themed merchandise.

 

The continuing power of book-themed merchandise

 

There are concerns that merchandise is drawing more attention than the books themselves. However, in reality, many readers rediscover books through merchandise - people often pick up a book after noticing its accompanying merchandise, or they track down a title because they encountered a product engraved with a favorite author’s line at bookstores and book fairs. In the coming years, merchandise is likely to become a mechanism that increases the amount of time readers dwell in the publishing ecosystem. Rather than ending as one-off purchases, these items are forming structures that extend into communities and lifestyles - further strengthening their influence. Pop-up exhibitions and collaboration products continue to capture readers’ interest and translate into actual sales, showing that merchandise has become an indispensable marketing element in the publishing market.
Of course, if merchandise dilutes the essence of books or remains at the level of copying formulas from previous successes, readers will quickly feel fatigued. What ultimately matters is not the “object” itself, but how “authentically” it expands the experience books create. Merchandise is not meant to replace books. It should function as a pathway that reignites curiosity about books - a device that leads readers back to reading them. It flexibly reshapes the ways readers encounter books - encouraging them to pick up a title, linger with it longer, and giving them something to remember the experience by. As the act of reading stretches beyond paper and into objects embedded in daily life, the rise of book-themed merchandise has become more than a passing fad, but a sustained force expanding the publishing market.

 

 

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Written by Kim Yang-Hee (Assistant Manager at PLATFORM P)