SEOUL, KOREA – Despite the ever flourishing Korean cultural industries at home and abroad, the publishing industry seems to be declining. The number of Korean publishers steadily publishing over ten types of books each year is hovering around 900, and the number of bookstores has dropped by over half to around 1,700 for the last decade. To revitalize the declining publishing industry and strengthen its global publication competitiveness, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) set up the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea (KPIPA) in July of this year. In September, the MCST, working together with KPIPA published a five-year plan of promoting the Korean publishing industry.
“The role of the publishing industry is becoming more important as publishing content plays a part in the source of supplying refined and specialized knowledge in this information explosion era,” said Jae-ho Lee, Chairman of Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea.
“Although the publishing industry is a repository of cultural industries such as film, drama, musical and games, it has so far been financially and institutionally neglected and received little attention in Korea. This is in stark contrast to other industries, say, film and tourism, with hundreds of million dollar-government funds supported. During my time in office, we will put a great effort towards salvaging a pride of the publishing industry as an origin of content as well as improving the public perception to receive better treatment. Long pending issues of nominal fixed book pricing and copyright will be addressed through legal and institutional improvement. We also plan to provide support for capable yet small publishers and new writers, aiming to promote a diversity of contents.”
E-book Market to Boom
“With the emergence of social media and smartphones, digital publishing is expected to thrive more in the future while competitiveness of traditional paper books appears to be weakening,” Lee said. According to PwC, the global publishing market in 2010 was USD 108.7 billion and is forecast to go up by 1.9% to USD 119.2 billion in 2015, while the global electronic publishing market was around USD 560 million in 2006, and is expected to rise by 34.7% to USD 12.3 billion. The situation in the Korean e-publishing industry is no different, with USD 282 million in 2011, and is expected to reach USD 400 million in 2015, an increase of 7.8%.
He continued that, “The first thing we have done since establishment was to come up with ‘Support plan for quality e-books’. Currently, e-book contents in circulation contain merely around 100,000 types and still do not satisfy various content demands, with the primary concentration in fiction. From later this year, we will run a portal service that will allow integrated search for shared writings (expired copyrighted works, donated writings, etc) to use them for e-book content production. On top of this, investing nearly USD 400,000, we are aiming to build up ICOP (Illegal Copyright Obstruction Program) for e-books next year to protect rights of copyright holders, publishers, and distributors. Issues of typographical Arrangement – publisher’s rights to typographical arrangement, design and layout – such as piracy issues of converting paper books into e-books will also be addressed.”
K-Book to Go Global
Recently, Korean culture is emerging as a major exporter of popular culture centering on K-pop and dramas, but Korean books are little known in the global market. “Please Look After Mom”, the work of a popular Korean novelist, Kyung-sook Shin is among the very few global bestsellers. It was translated into 17 languages, and its publication rights were sold to 34 countries. Prof. Ran-do Kim’s “Youth, It’s Painful”, a book advising Korea’s youth to believe in the possibilities of their future was also exported to seven countries, particularly popular in China.
“Seen from the popularity of Korean culture in many countries, books, the original contents of the Korean wave also have a distinct possibility of appealing to readers overseas. However, many small and medium publishers, not to mention big ones, seem to have neither incentives nor capacity to promote them in the overseas market due to lack of market information. KPIPA plans to set up ‘Support center for publication export’, a one-stop policy & business center, taking a full charge of providing information, training, and marketing services for publication export. The center will be a venue where overseas market information and trend analysis are provided by regions, languages, and nations, and where small and medium publishers train in terms of marketing, business contracts, and legal process for export. We will also set up an integrated translation system by language, genre, and field, as well as open translation training courses to increase the number and professionalism of book translators. For the globalization of Korean books, indeed, Korea’s unique values and philosophy should stand up as American pop culture has been able to sweep the world with its unique identity.”
“The importance of publishing contents cannot be overemphasized in this information and knowledge society, as it is becoming a culture that defines our identity as well as a future national growth engine. In this sense, the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea will work hard towards revitalizing the publishing industry by helping it to keep pace with digital trends, to promote diversity as well as to go global. As a true servant of the Korean publishing industry, we are aiming to create a publishing eco-system which can benefit all the parties concerned – writers, publishers, sellers and readers.”
