Are K-Pop Books The Next Hot Publishing Trend In 2023?

After blazing a trail through the global music mainstream, K-Pop is now branching into other media, including Hollywood films, television series, webtoons, and novels.

Young adult K-Pop romances (Once Upon a K-Prom by Kat Cho, XOXO by Axie Oh) and trainee-to-idol journeys (Shine by Jessica Jung, I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee) have been climbing best-sellers lists, but is this just the start of a new bookish trend?

What would you do if the world’s biggest K-pop star asked you to prom?

— Once Upon a K-Prom summary, GoodReads

Both aspiring and debuting authors are now pushing the boundaries of what “K-Pop books” can be with their imaginative, genre-blending stories.

K-POP x FRANKENSTEIN

Prodigy. Scientist. Now, Magdalena can add “god” to her resume.

After making an idol from cadavers, she abandons it in fear. But when the monster comes for blood, she must face the music of what she created to save those she loves. #DVPit #POC #LGBT #SF #A

— sophie ligaya is on hiatus⁷ (@pineappellae) August 2, 2022

#KPOP X READY PLAYER ONE

A missing K-pop group is trapped inside a fantasy world with no memories of the real one.

3 fans (transported from around the globe) must unravel fan theory conspiracies to free them.

A stalker will do anything to stop them. #MoodPitch #A #SPF #MV pic.twitter.com/HkQf6ye1Vl

— Vee X (@vxv_official) November 3, 2022

Author Vee X Vee, who is currently querying her fantasy-mystery novel ACROSS THE K-POP UNIVERSE, is giving “representation to adult K-Pop fans [. . .] who are often misrepresented and erased” through her colorful characters, aged 19 to 32. Despite evidence to the contrary, K-Pop fans are still stereotyped as obsessive teenage girls in the media. Vee X Vee hopes to challenge this perception while exploring the friendships fans form through K-Pop.

The majority of K-Pop books fall into commercial fiction categories, but debuting author Esther Yi is giving fandom culture a literary twist in her novel Y/N. This surrealistic, fever dream of a story follows a Korean American woman living in Berlin who embarks on “a hilarious, high-concept journey of literary self-destruction” to track down her bias, Moon.