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The Book Market in South Korea for Canadian Publishers Report of the Livres Canada Books Scouting Mission to South Korea 17–21 June 2013 The Book Market in South Korea for Canadian Publishers Report of the Livres Canada Books Scouting Mission to South Korea, 17-21 June 2013 © 2013 Livres Canada Books All rights reserved. Published 2013 Members of the Delegation François Charette Executive Director, Livres Canada Books [email protected] Gillian Fizet Rights Manager, House of Anansi and Grounwood Books [email protected] Arnaud Foulon Vice-President, Publishing and Operations, Groupe HMH [email protected] Brian MacDonald Sales and Marketing Manager, University of Toronto Press [email protected] A special thanks to Hye-Shin Kang and Soo Hyang Kim of the Embassy of Canada to Korea, who made our scouting mission a success. Livres Canada Books 1 Nicholas Street, Suite 504 Ottawa, Ontario K1N 7B7 CANADA www.livrescanadabooks.com We acknowledge the financial support of the Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du Government of Canada through the Canada Book gouvernement du Canada par l’entremise du Fonds Fund at Canadian Heritage du livre du Canada de patrimoine canadien Contents The Korean Context . 1 Reading Trends . .3 The Korean Book Market . .4 Trade, Pricing and Royalties . .7 The Adult Trade Perspective, Gillian Fizet ........................... 8 Paju Book City. .8 The National Library of Korea . 10 Meetings with Publishers and Distributors . 10 Meetings with Subagents (Rights Agencies) . 13 Bookstore Visits . 13 Recommendations for Trade and English-Language Publishers . 14 The Scholarly Perspective, Brian MacDonald .................... 16 Book Market. 16 Higher Education in Korea . 17 Translation Rights. 18 Local Print-on-Demand Suppliers . 19 The Children’s Book and French-Language Perspective, Arnaud Foulon . 20 Digital Technology . 20 Publishers . 21 Agents . 22 Children’s Literature . 23 Conclusion. 24 Appendix: Contacts in Korea . .....................25 Publishers . 25 Agencies . 27 Booksellers / Distributors / Wholesalers. 28 Publishing Related Organizations and Government Bodies . 29 The Korean Context South Korea is the only country to increase in status from developing country and foreign aid recipient in the early 60s to member of the OECD and foreign aid donor at the turn of the twenty-first century. Korea’s 50 million inhabitants (nearly 2 million of them foreigners) now have an advanced lifestyle which to some degree—as with smart phone penetration and urban style—is setting trends around the world, and attracting considerable cultural attention. Korea’s journey to become the world’s fifteenth largest economy has not been easy. It is marked by 30 years of extensive government direction, and the heavy hand of the state continues to be ever present. Korea can be characterized as a land of giant conglomer- ates, known as chaebol, that have established a substantial global market share. These conglomerates, which include Hyundai Motors, Samsung, and LG, make exports the major driver of the country’s economy. Korea was badly hit by the Asian crisis of 1997-98, but was consequently well prepared for the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9. The crisis yielded little direct financial impact in Korea; however, the Korean won weakened against the US dollar and exports slipped, pushing the country into a recession. Despite the recession, the country managed to retain marginally positive economic growth. The Korean economy bounced back in 2010, and grew by 3.7% in 2011. The domestic economy in Korea has been steadily worsening since mid-2011. This has affected private expenditure as inflation has outgrown wages and household debt is at an all-time high since 1998. This is demonstrated by decreasing monthly expendi- tures on books and other cultural commodities, which are taking a hard hit during these periods. This section extracted from the guide Selling Canadian Books and Translation Rights in Korea (Livres Canada Books, 2012). 2 | the korean context Table 1. Key economic indicators, 2008-2012 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 (est.) GDP (₩ trillions) 1,026,452 1,065,037 1,172,803 1,215,023 1,251,473 GDP growth (%) 2.3 0.3 6.2 3.6 3.0 Private expenditure growth (%) 1.5 0.1 4.2 2.4 2.1 Unemployment rate (%) 3.2 3.6 3.7 3.4 N/A Exchange rate (₩/C$) 1,038.31 1,100.24 1,125.68 1,119.61 1,122.65 Population 49,540,367 49,773,145 50,515,666 51,121,854 51,530,829 Households 19,005,339 19,261,292 19,865,179 20,132,485 20,403,388 Monthly household spending on books (₩) 22,638 21,211 21,902 20,570 20,690 Bookstores 3,519 3,009 3,111 2,962 2,920 Source: Statistics Korea, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Korea, Korea Publishing Marketer Conference (KPMAC). After many achievements in the pre-industrial age, Korea has since suffered through colonization by the Japanese and then from a state-controlled system which simplified national diversity to a few stereotypes. Only in the last 20 years has Korea’s culture become vibrant and creative. While English is taught as a second language from an increasingly early age, many still use “Konglish” (English words or words derived from English with the same meaning in Korean context) rather than correct English. Students tend to have a passive knowledge of the language. The oldest generation’s second language is Japanese. Korea’s population is aging. There are fewer young people of school and university age and a rapidly growing cohort of Korean baby boomers in their 50s and 60s (For Korea the baby boom generation came a decade later than in North America, and after the Korean war of 1950-53). The old-style, economically active population (defined as 15-64 years of age) will peak in 2017, however recent trends show strong employment growth of people in their 50s and 60s and unemployment among young Koreans in their 20s. The latest 2012 figures from the Hyundai Economic Research Institute reflect a reality where 1.1 million Koreans in their 20s are unemployed and 70.5% of them have given up looking for work. Although families are smaller than in the past, Korean families are great consumers of books, particularly children’s books. However, it should be noted that once past kindergarten, Koreans are more likely to be reading online rather than off-line. The Korean system of education is intensive; Korean students spend more hours studying in both formal schools and after-school private institutes than do students in any other nation. English is being taught as a compulsory subject from kindergarten on, and young Koreans have a much better command of it than their parents. Koreans are renowned for the length of hours that they study, and their aptitude scores in mathematics reflect this. The life of a Korean child from about the age of three, until taking the university entrance exam between the ages of 17 and 18, revolves around study at school and then putting in time after school at private institutes. The private reading trends | 3 institutes attempt to re-teach students the essential skills which should have been taught at school. The number of school children is shrinking however, as the population ages. This means that classes are smaller, and smaller schools are subsequently threatened with closure. Despite this intense education process, many Koreans feel unsatisfied with the Korean system—which tends to favour learning by rote—and seek at enormous cost to send their children (and often one parent) to an English-speaking country for part of their education. According to The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, out of a total of 289,288 Koreans studying abroad in 2010-11, 5% chose to study in Canada, with 24.9% and 21.8% choosing to study in the United States and China respectively. Children who have spent more than three years abroad are eligible to attend one of 165 prestigious Foreign Language High Schools in Korea, where approximately 100,000 students study in English. The number of bookstores in Korea has been steadily declining over the past decade. The vast majority of these are independent bookshops. Many of these shops were dependent on the sale of school textbooks, which are officially approved and frequently revised. It is the opinion of major publishers that the decline in bookstores will have minimal effect on future sales as big retailers, like Kyobo and YP Books (Young Poong), pick up the slack. Buying online from big bookshops has also become convenient and quick, with books delivered inexpensively overnight or even the same day. Contrary to the decline in bookshops, the conversion of video stores into bookstores that lend books and comic books—rather than videos or DVDs—is a remarkable phenomenon. Korea is generally considered to be a difficult market in which to do business, where local expertise will be required and although the country and ways of business are changing, it is still a culture in which relationships are considered important. For this reason, agents continue to be essential go-betweens between foreign publishers and Korean publishers. Reading Trends There is a general consensus in Korea that you will succeed in your later life if you manage to get into one of the top four universities, known by the acronym SKY— Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University (plus Ewha Women’s University). Korean students are pressured by parents to read and study intensively, in order to get into a good university. This would explain the year-on-year increase of aver- age books read by students. A rising number of students aim to study abroad, with the goal of attending an Ivy League university.

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