Best Seller" books
In 2025, the movie "Red Rain" produced by Military Cinema created a miraculous effect, achieving historical revenue of about 714 billion VND, and at the same time creating a "storm" of content related to the movie across platforms.
From the movie, the number of interested readers who want to find and read the novel "Red Rain" has also increased dramatically. Previously, the book was launched to readers by the People's Army Publishing House (QĐND Publishing House) in 2016, but there were no such positive effects.
Only after the success of the movie "Red Rain", the novel continuously "sold out". QĐND Publishing House is also very sensitive, continuously reprinting, changing covers, and releasing hardcover versions... Information about new editions of the book is also continuously updated by the press. In particular, the "communication campaign" of book sellers on social networking platforms, especially Facebook, is even more effective, when closely following the "heat" of movies and books, and skillfully bringing attractive details, attracting readers, arousing curiosity, making even more people have a need to order books.
Thanks to the strong effect, about 80,000 copies of the book "Red Rain" have been released, bringing the total number of these books to readers to nearly 100,000 copies, a record for Vietnamese literature books in recent years.
Meanwhile, it can be seen that although the content of "Red Rain" is attractive, with good details, it is not yet an excellent novel in terms of literature.
Not only that, the effect from "Red Rain" also promoted the need to learn about the battle in Quang Tri, causing other publications on the same topic such as "Memories of Quang Tri" compiled by Nguyen Thuy Kha to also increase sharply in sales.
In addition to the "Red Rain phenomenon", the most prominent literary works in recent years all record the names of familiar authors such as Nguyen Nhat Anh, Nguyen Phong Viet. While other writers each time they release works, only expect to sell a few thousand copies, with these two authors with a large fan community, each publication has a number of tens of thousands.
At the end of 2025, when "childhood knight" Nguyen Nhat Anh released his latest novel "The Girl next door and four candies", nearly 100,000 copies of the book were sold out.
Because this collection of stories is considered the sequel to the story "I See Yellow Flowers on Green Grass" which has also been made into a movie, creating a trend (trend) from several years ago.
The collection continues Nguyen Nhat Anh's own writing style, with his own memories of the city, his adaptations and struggles in a land far from his homeland, of young characters learning how to grow up, which has made many readers find themselves in it.
As for Nguyen Phong Viet, after building a community of fans of his unique poetry quality, in recent years, when he published essay collections, such as "We live to return" during the recent Binh Ngo Tet, or collections "We live to move forward" at the end of 2024, "We live to listen" at the end of 2023, all attracted readers who were once fascinated by his poetic writing style.
A notable phenomenon in the Vietnamese publishing industry recently is author Nguyen Phong (John Vu) with the book series "Muon kiep nhan sinh" (3 volumes), which has attracted readers since the first volume was released in 2020.
According to the publishing unit, in 2021, the book sold more than 100,000 copies. Perhaps, the content of the book set is suitable for the current context, when life has too much pressure, readers find a spiritual support, helping everyone reflect on karma, past lives and the journey of awakening.
At the end of 2025, the full set of 3 volumes will be released, and will still be welcomed by readers. Readers feel that each volume is attractive thanks to the author's writing style and skillful guidance, to get into the picture of many lives throughout civilizations, combining scientific, philosophical and historical understanding to lead readers to discover the ego and meaning of existence.
However, the book also faces many controversies, such as the lack of scientific basis for reincarnation, or making readers believe in mystery too much.
Besides the above-mentioned sensational phenomena, the publishing industry recognizes the prominence of some non-fiction publications, such as the books "The Teacher" by author Nguyen Chi Vinh, written about the portrait of intelligence general Dang Tran Duc (Ba Quoc), "I Tell - Everything from Books" by painter and book maker Tran Dai Thang, all sold quite well.
The book "Records" by painter and translator Trinh Lu, although a reprinted book, quickly "sold out", or the book "Love - A story continuing from the heart" by Dr. Nguyen Lan Hieu, which was just released but has entered the best-selling book group.
Explaining the attraction
Besides the attraction from the authors themselves such as Nguyen Lan Hieu, Trinh Lu, Nguyen Chi Vinh, the books mentioned above are all very well mediated, especially on the Facebook platform.
Fans pages introducing the book "The Teacher" always know how to put good, attractive, and unique excerpts in the art of intelligence to promote, and each post has a large amount of positive interaction, with dozens of shares.
Recently, many book selling fanpages are also using similar measures to promote the book "CM 12 - Behind the counter-intelligence plan" by author Nguyen Khac Duc - Major General, former Director of the Department of Technical and Professional Affairs I, General Department of Security, Ministry of Public Security.
Whether this book becomes a phenomenon or not still needs to wait a while, especially when information about the People's Police Cinema is making a long-running television series about this counter-intelligence case, and it will be broadcast on television this year.
Despite the lack of outstanding literary works, the Vietnamese publishing industry in recent years has also had a few notable works, such as the collection of stories "Linh fish going to school" by Le Quang Trang published by Kim Dong Publishing House in 2023, attracting a number of young readers and parents. This collection of stories was awarded the Vietnam Writers' Association Literature Award 2023, Children's Literature category.
Besides, although it has been quite a long time since there were any outstanding history books, the 10-volume book series "Good Stories of Vietnamese History" by the group of authors Nguyen Nhu Mai, Nguyen Huy Thang and Nguyen Quoc Tin, published by Kim Dong Publishing House in 2024, was also on the bestseller list at one point.
Vietnamese publishers are still waiting for truly breakthrough publications, with high value in both artistic and commercial quality to create "best sellers" enough to change the "quality", "quantity" of Vietnamese reading culture.
