Category: K-Pop Now (Page 2 of 3)

In these early days since K-POP NOW came out on Amazon.com, it is pretty interesting to see the various ways the book turns up on the book giant’s data trackers. For instance, it has been doing well on the Travel > Asia > Japan category (peaking at No. 1, now at No. 6).

Now K-POP NOW is turning up on Amazon’s Hot New Releases category — turning up as the No. 15 for Pop Culture > General (and No. 22 for Pop Culture overall).

Note: I assume the book won’t stay at those links for long. So here is a screen grab:

Well, I’m no expert on these things, but so far it looks like the Amazon.com rollout of K-POP NOW! is going fairly well. We have a couple of reviews there so far (big thanks for those) and sales, while bouncing around a bit, are now around 6,600th — that’s the highest I’ve ever been there.

Meanwhile, over on Goodreads, 17 people have given K-POP NOW a rating and 319 have marked it “to read.” All very cool.

In addition, the popular American radio program Marketplace was nice enough to have a little segment about my book. Big thanks to Kai Ryssdal and everyone at the show who made it happen (especially thanks to Bridget!). You can listen to the interview here:

UPDATE: I just checked out Amazon.ca and there K-POP NOW! is up to 3,100. Yay, Canada. Strangely, though, Amazon says it is the No. 1 travel book for Japan. Wth?

Well, at long last, K-POP NOW is finally out on Amazon.com (and other major Western bookstores). Yes, the book has been available for a while, but these days Amazon feels so much more real…

Anyhow, Soompi, the great K-pop/culture website was nice enough to publish a long interview with me today. Plus they are giving away a bunch of books to readers. The comments at the end of the story are wonderful and so kind. I truly appreciate them all.

Thanks to the power of Soompi, my Amazon ranking is really shooting up. As you can see, I’m now in the 9,000th range, which is some pretty rare air for me. Again, huge thanks to everyone taking the time to check it out.

UPDATE: A few hours later, and we are now up to 8,000. Which is very cool. But for me, the coolest part is being one spot ahead on Amazon’s Popular Music Chart than a book about Leonard Cohen. Major nerd-out.

So, my little lecture tour through the United States is about half over already. And so far it has been quite a lot of fun. It was interesting to see Philadelphia again (for the first time in over a decade … and my first time on Penn campus since 1996, I think). At the moment I am in my hotel room on the  Ohio State campus, waiting to give yet another talk. Some thoughts so far:

• In Philadelphia, I went to the same diner that I used to frequent 20 year’s ago, Little Pete’s. Amazingly, the same two women were working the night shift there. Of course they did not remember me, but I certainly remember them — as foul-mouthed and kind as they ever were.
• Nice to see that Philadelphia is so much less stabby than it used to be. Penn campus in particular was looking good.
• Bloomington, Indiana is a lovely town and the Indiana University campus is very pretty.
• But I cannot believe I went to Kilroy, the student pub. Raucous place.
• Ohio State, in Columbus, is also a very nice campus. Apparently Columbus is going through something of a revival, with several parts of town getting fixed up and gentrified (or hipsterfied, anyhow).
• Thanks to Richard Vega at Myx and Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace for taking the time to interview me about K-Pop Now.
• Thanks to Tuttle for getting copies of my book to all the locations.

Just a little reminder that the book website Goodreads is giving away copies of K-Pop Now. You still have two weeks to enter for your chance at one of 10 free copies.

You can click here to enter the contest.

As K-POP NOW! gets closer to its international release (coming to Amazon on April 29), Tuttle is slowly ramping up its marketing push. And one cool thing they’re doing is holding a contest over on Goodreads, giving away 10 copies. So sign up and enter if you want to win a free copy.

I should also mention that I’ll be going on a mini lecture tour (kind of) in the second week of April. Actually, it’s mostly a coincidence that it synchronizes with the release of K-POP NOW, but I think the coincidence is kind of cool. Anyhow, I’ll be talking about K-pop and Korean culture at the University of Pennsylvania on April 7, Indiana University on April 8, Ohio State University on April 10 and the University of Michigan on April 11.

I think Tuttle is trying to organize some bookstore stuff at those schools, too, but I don’t have any details yet.

The Korean (of Ask a Korean fame) has just posted a nice little review of K-POP NOW over on his book review blog. Aside from a couple of quibbles — and a very legitimate complaint about the lack of Lee Hyo-ri on the book — he was mostly quite complimentary.

For a taste of what he has to say:

K-Pop Now is not a treatise of everything there is to know about Korean pop music. Like the stars it covers, the book is glossy, thin and image-heavy. Russell’s insight is more readily available in the introductory passages, as the later parts of the book are not much more than a series of quick presentations about K-pop artists. None of this is meant as a criticism. The book is properly understood as a breezy introduction to a slice of Korean pop music scene, which is hardly a reason to complain: everyone needs an introduction to a given topic before they explore further.

Not a bad summary at all, imho.

If you want to pre-order K-POP NOW, you can do so on Amazon.com, Indigo, and of course at Tuttle Books. In most of the world, it should be getting released in April, so if you pre-order, you won’t have long to wait.

Some early reviews are coming in for K-POP NOW. Very exciting.

Just a few minutes ago, The Korean (of Ask a Korean fame) posted a review over on his book blog Reading Korea. And he was nice enough to say a lot of nice things about it. For example:

 Keen-eyed and resourceful, Russell has regularly provided valuable insight into today’s Korean pop music that is both historical and comparative. Russell’s celebration of K-pop is jubilant but sober.

Another review I found was from a more obscure site, this blog that reviews young adult books for libraries. But it was also very positive.

Russell has put together a fantastic volume of information regarding the K-Pop history and industry. This is relevant to the current K-Pop craze phenomena and interest to those who are reading it for the first time or have a deep concern about their favorite groups. It will also make a great complementary addition to any classroom curriculum on the topic of Korean Culture.

It is so nice when the first reviews for a new book come back positive. I’m sure there’s a bashing coming before too long, but I really appreciate these positive and interesting early reviews.

So my publisher, Tuttle, made an official press release a couple of days ago for K-Pop Now!. Very exciting.

Or maybe not so exciting. But, still, word needs to get out, so I suppose the press release is a logical step.  But it is nice to see Tuttle is now saying April 7 is the date the book should be available (up from April 29, which is what Amazon.com says).

Also nice to see giveaways ramping up. If you are in the Philippines, here is a giveaway happening at the National Book Store (runs until Feb. 24). Hopefully we’ll have a lot more like that to announce before too long.