Korea Life Blog - Hollym


I heard back from Hollym today. If you forgot, I sent them a short sample from the Geoje-do story. Actually I had to call them back. They received my e-mail before but didn't bother to reply, no surprise. The long and short of it is they don't publish novels unless they are translated from Korean or based on historical content. "Publications include Korean language textbooks and dictionaries, Korean history, art, travel, cooking, "novels", folktale, politics, and children's books." This seems to hold true if you look at the books on their website, however I thought maybe they would take advantage of something a little different, something that might appeal to a different audience. When asked what publisher I should use, they said there was no specific one that has published such a book before and that I'd be better off self-publishing. Apparently there's a niche in the market waiting to be filled! Yeah, that's it...

Oh well, the more I looked into Hollym the more I realized they wouldn't be such a great option anyway. Do you see when you try to order a book from them on their website? The "preferred method" of ordering is to e-mail them your credit card info. Does anybody do that nowadays? Their website also says "Hollym Current Titles Last updated July 22, 2003". That's pretty current! Either they mean 2004 and updated it two days in the future or they're sorely in need of one. The main reason I liked them is because they publish in both Korean and other countries.

I guess in the end I'll end up going the self-publishing route. The downside is it's going to take a chunk of money I don't really have if I want to get it done right: copy-edited, professionally designed, listed on Amazon and all that. Another problem is that the book would be readily available only in the states, anyone in Korea would have to order it. I'm not sure anyone is willing to even buy the book (unless it's very cheap and staring them in the face in front of them at the local bookstore) much less pay shipping to here.

A plus with the self publishing route is that I'd actually own the book and if it showed signs of being popular later, maybe a real publisher would give it a go here in Korea or the states. And since copy-editing is available, it would end up a lot more professional than submitting manuscripts with errors/inconsistencies, etc, that comes with self-editing.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for the nice comments and especially all the e-mails of encouragement and suggestions I've been getting. If you want to send Hollym a letter encouraging them to change their mind, you can e-mail them here:


hollym2@optonline.net (America)

info@hollym.co.kr (Korea)