Staff organize books by Han Kang at Kyobo Books Centre’s Gwanghwamun department in central Seoul, Oct. 16. Yonhap
By KTimes
On Oct. 11, the day after South Korean creator Han Kang received the Nobel Prize in literature, a bookstore proprietor in Busan tried to order her books by wholesaler Kyobo Guide Centre, solely to be turned away with a message that orders weren’t being accepted.
Left with no choice, he needed to flip away prospects in search of Han’s works. A couple of week later, one thing odd occurred — 10 copies of Han’s books arrived from Kyobo, though he had not positioned any orders.
Round Oct. 18, impartial bookstores nationwide reported receiving unsought shipments of Han’s books.
“They blocked orders completely with out providing updates or perhaps a ‘please wait’; then, after we protested towards unfair practices, they only despatched out books at random,” the bookstore proprietor stated.
Criticism has mounted over the “Han Kang Nobel Prize growth” being monopolized by the “Huge Three” bookstores — Kyobo Guide Centre, Yes24 and Aladdin — sidelining smaller, impartial bookstores.
In simply 5 days, the Huge Three offered over one million copies of Han’s works (together with e-books), whereas different bookstores needed to flip prospects away resulting from a scarcity of inventory.
The state of affairs has uncovered vulnerabilities in South Korea’s publishing distribution community, which critics argue is just too concentrated within the fingers of some giant wholesalers and retailers.
Individuals collect outdoors a bookstore run by creator Han Kang in central Seoul’s Seochon neighborhood, Oct. 13. Yonhap
Market centralization
Based on Han Ki-ho, head of the Publishing Advertising and marketing Analysis Institute, “The overconcentration of distribution energy is the most important difficulty.”
He stated that the Huge Three held almost 80 p.c of the market, leaving small and medium-sized bookstores struggling. Wholesale distributors have additionally dwindled since 2017, when the second-largest distributor Songin Books went bankrupt.
With the ability of e book distribution concentrated in a number of giant firms, regional bookstores have more and more relied on Kyobo Guide Centre, which has entered the wholesale enterprise lately.
The variety of regional bookstores working with Kyobo rose from 716 in 2020 to 1,100 by 2022. As of Oct. 28, Kyobo reported working with over 2,000 regional bookstores, holding a big share of the nationwide wholesale market alongside Woongjin Books.
The present state of the publishing business has left solely “giants” standing in each wholesale and retail, as fewer individuals learn books and impartial bookstores proceed to shut.
In reality, the variety of bookstores nationwide dropped from 3,589 in 2003 to 2,484 in 2023, a discount of over 1,000 in simply 20 years, in keeping with the Korea Federation of Bookstore Cooperatives.
A field of unsolicited books despatched by Kyobo Guide Centre to an impartial bookstore proprietor in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Oct. 19. Courtesy of the bookstore proprietor
A foreseeable disaster
Kyobo’s involvement in each retail and wholesale has raised points, because it might prioritize common books for its personal shops over supplying different sellers. This example was partially predicted in 2020, when Kyobo formally entered the wholesale market.
On the time, Baek Gained-geun, head of the Guide and Society Analysis Institute, wrote in a publication that “if Kyobo monopolizes the wholesale market, it would in the end hurt regional bookstores and smaller publishers,” evaluating it to “leaving a hungry cat in control of the fish.”
Kyobo responded to the criticism, saying that from Oct. 14 to 17, when new prints of Han’s books started arriving, the corporate acquired round 17,000 copies of Han’s books and equipped about 2,900 (17 p.c) to regional bookstores.
Main publishers with rights to Han’s works, reminiscent of Changbi Publishers, have been additionally criticized for sending books “in proportion to the gross sales share” of the Huge Three as a substitute of making certain smaller shops might inventory the books.
Critics argue that, whereas giant on-line retailers can deal with again orders, native bookstores profit from rapid availability of bodily inventory for walk-in prospects.
In Paju, an impartial bookstore proprietor needed to create a show for Han’s books and dangle banners in celebration however couldn’t safe copies.
“All of the publishers holding the rights to Han’s works are main gamers, they usually at present maintain all the ability,” he stated. “In the event that they valued the function of impartial bookstores within the e book ecosystem, they’d have put aside copies particularly for us.”
The inventory for “Human Acts” is proven as “zero” on Kyobo Guide Centre’s web site, following the shop’s announcement of a halt in gross sales of Han Kang’s books till the top of the month. Captured from Kyobo Guide Centre web site
Baek Gained-geun stated, “It might have been useful if publishers had prioritized gross sales alternatives for native bookstores, which seldom get a break. Going ahead, Kyobo ought to take this incident as an opportunity to embrace sustainable practices and fulfill its social tasks as a wholesaler.”
Regardless of the uproar, the federal government has been sluggish to reply. An official from the Ministry of Tradition, Sports activities and Tourism stated, “We’re monitoring the state of affairs and getting ready a cooperative initiative between bigger and smaller bookstores to advertise mutual development.”
This text from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Instances, is translated by a generative AI and edited by The Korea Instances.
