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| Publishing Trends |
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Vol.6 Winter 2009
(Page 12) |
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Korean E-book Fever |
 By Richard Hong |
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This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair was packed
with various seminars and conferences
related to e-books. Google, for example, has
planned to build an electronic library, but
there have been severe objections within
the EU. Therefore, Google presented a
solution titled, “Google Editions,” at the
Frankfurt Book Fair to emphasize the
necessity of an electronic library. Out of all
of the books exhibited during the fair, over
40 percent were e-book-related, proving the
quick development of e-books. Recently,
e-books have become a hot item in the
Korean book market. Korean manufactured
portable reader devices are evaluated to be
better than the Amazon Kindle. This fall,
Samsung released the “Papyrus,” Neolux
distributed the “NUTT series,” and iriver,
a major MP3 player manufacturer, began
selling “iriver Story,” all which lead the
world in portability and user-friendliness.
The factor that determines the success
of the e-book business, however, is not
the portable reader device itself, but the
contents. Korean telecommunication
companies such KT and SKT, and
major book distributors such as Kyobo
Bookstore and Interpark, are at war to
secure competitive material for e-books.
Armed with large budgets and distributing
networks, they are aggressively pursuing
business partnerships with publishers.
Many publishers were a part of the now
bankrupt consortium e-book company
Booktopia, but, not wanting to lose the
market to large companies, they have
forged on and established the Korean
Publishing Contents (KPC) in hopes of
securing leadership in the market. |
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