Korea hosts shared readings

South Korea’s reading platform Wela has teamed up with the Writers Association of Korea for a two-week World Book Day reading event running from April 20 to May 3. (bookstoreadonline.com) The program spotlights excerpts from works by nine Korean authors on Wela, including Cho Jungrae, Kwon Yeo-sun, Choi Jinyoung and Park Sangyoung. Users who finish reading or listening to at least one featured title are entered automatically into a prize draw. (bookstoreadonline.com) The prizes are “blind books,” or randomly selected titles by writers from the association. Taejin Moon, chief executive of Wela operator Influential, said the partnership was meant to mark April 23 World Book Day with a shared reading campaign. (bookstoreadonline.com) The collaboration lands in a month already crowded with state-backed reading events in South Korea. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism opened National Library Day and Library Week programs on April 10, with author talks, festivals and library events scheduled nationwide. (sedaily.com) South Korea has spent decades building reading promotion into public policy. The country’s library and reading campaigns were formalized through laws in the 1990s and 2000s, and public libraries were running 58,144 reading programs as of 2021, with nearly 13.6 million participants. (kbook-eng.or.kr) Wela is pitching the event through the strengths of a subscription reading app rather than a bookstore or library branch. Its service combines e-books, audiobooks, classes and audio web novels, and the company says it offers South Korea’s largest audiobook catalog. (welaaa.com) That format lets the campaign mix text and audio for the same authors. Wela says works by Cho Jungrae and Choi Jinyoung are available on the platform in both e-book and audiobook editions. (bookstoreadonline.com) World Book Day itself is observed each year on April 23 as UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day, a date used internationally to promote reading and publishing. Wela’s event turns that one-day marker into a two-week push built around Korean writers and shared participation on one platform. (wikipedia.org, bookstoreadonline.com)