The presence of nearly 300 Korean publishers at the Bologna Book Fair earlier this year caught many publishers' attention. Nearly all of them were looking for children's books to buy, and PWwas curious about the reason. It turns out that the phenomenon of Harry Potter, the Internet's popularity with children and the growing enthusiasm of parents for children's at-home educational entertainment have together created an astounding boom in the children's book market in Korea.
In January, the Korean press reported that the children's book sector is now 40% of the total, and while Harry Potter is in part responsible for the increasing figures, many Korean publishers attended Bologna to buy product to beef up their juvenile lines.
Foreign rights agent Eric Yang hopes this is a long-term trend. "The Koreans will learn something through buying children's book rights," he tells PW. "We really need to train more artists, authors and editors here, and to encourage new ideas, so the translations help. The future in children's books is also bright because children are reading more books."
In 1995, Tae-Jin Kim, children's editor at JoongAngM&B, recalls buying a variety of foreign books to translate, but sales were poor. Since 1998, however, sales of children's book have grown much faster than other categories, even though the number of children is declining. "Publishers think children's books are safe now," Kim tells PW. "So they are all jumping in. That is why you have seen so many Koreans at Bologna in the last two years. European-style juveniles are particularly popular in Korea. But we wonder when this bubble will burst."
M&B's three-year-old series of 25 titles called Very Funny Old Fairy Tales is aimed at eight- to 12-year-olds, sold through bookstores and promoted to parents. While parents are accustomed to buying educational sets of books for their children door-to-door, this was different. "It was a new concept in Korea, adding history and culture to a good story," says Kim. "So it is educational, and the illustrations and photos add reference information." Like all the publishers PW met, M&B is not ignoring the readers on the Internet it's doing a Web site with this same material.
Half of its juvenile catalogue (over 150 titles) consists of translations, so Sam Seong Dang Publishing Co. sent editor Eun-Hae Kim to Bologna this year. "Korean mothers prefer the European editions," Kim tells PW. "The French, like Nathan, and the Germans... they usually produce the kind of imaginative images and subtle colors that appeal to us. American titles tend to be more pragmatic, and the pictures are too realistic, plus they show people with blue eyes, big noses and pink skin. Now, though, we are going more toward Korean authors. Mothers seem to prefer them, though they are still not as good as those of the rest of the world."
The Harry Potter Phenomenon
PW first interviewed Eun-Kyung Kim last year, six months after the first Harry Potter title appeared in Korean. Published by her father's small, 10-year-old adult literary house, Moonhak Soochup Publishing Co. Ltd., the Harry Potter series' first appearance in Asia was in Korean, and the response was typical of its worldwide popularity.
The deal was not easy, however, according to Kim. "The advance required was really high for a children's book in Korea," she recalls. "Most of the publishers competing were already major bestselling houses." Kim decided to buy the series, despite the price, because "I thought the story was extraordinarily interesting. And, fortunately, the year before had been good for fantasy fiction for adults, but there was no fantasy fiction to capture the children's attention yet." Even as daughter of the publisher, though, Kim had trouble persuading company management to risk the high advance ($15,000 per title). On her fifth attempt, she finally won the day.
The first title was launched in November 1999, and the rest of the series followed in rapid succession: December 22, 1999, February 2000 and November 2000. Total sales are now over 3.5 million in Korean, mostly through bookstores and in supermarkets, as well as the superstores and department stores, which tie events and activities to the book promotions. A Web site run by the publisher now gets 10,000 hits a day, although no books are sold online.
"We know that 60% of the readers are children in Korea," Kim tells PW. "It is marvelous that Harry Potter satisfies both adults and children."
Harry Potter created a booming new market in Korea for 11- to 16-year-olds. Moonhak Soochup is now buying other titles from Scholastic (the Secrets of Droon series by Tony Abbott), Bloomsbury and Random House, among others.
Still publishing about 60 new titles a year, with 60% of those translations, the company is focusing more now on children's books such as The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge and the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. It recently launched a subsidiary company, just for young readers.
With the arrival of the movie this fall, Moonhak Soochup is ready for new Harry Potter merchandising opportunities as well. It bought rights for Harry Potter stationery, and Kim is considering activity books, 3-D versions, sticker books and coloring books.
While Kim is proud of her accomplishments, she struggles with the strictures of the Korean book market. "We really need to change the distribution system here," she complains. "A systematic and reasonable network is the pressing need."
Eric Yang, who handled the Harry Potter deal, concurs. "Even though the children's market is growing fast, we really need a reading promotion program," he tells PW. "Right now the door-to-door system assists in the distribution of books for young people, but distribution in the retail trade is still poorly done. The Internet will also help a lot; it will change the whole publishing business in Korea."
Jigyungsa Ltd. Publishers, another children's book house, has youthful Byungjoon Kim as president and founder of the 20-year-old company. He is also executive director of the Korean Publishers Association and has literally written the book on books in Korea. He and his younger brother, who is at the University of Chicago, co-authored a study of book economics.
Kim is excited by the opportunities in e-books, though he has made no firm arrangements. "E-books started in this country with comics, but now about 300 publishers are offering e-book versions of at least some of their titles. We think e-books will outsell the printed versions eventually."
The company's Web site, launched in 1999, gives visitors an introduction to the company, offers games for children online and also the opportunity to buy its books. More than half the titles are originals, though there are many translations, including Disney (which has a number of partners in Korea, as well as its own offices there). Jigyungsa is also active in the China market now, and is selling rights abroad.
But Kim is not thrilled with all the new competition at home. "So many Korean publishers are trying to enter the children's book market now," he says. "While the government supports the idea of books, they do not have a budget for promoting it. We need a reading promotion program in Korea."
So-Jin Kwak at the Korea Copyright Center is especially happy to see Korean children's publishers turning to foreign titles, something he encouraged a decade ago.
"It used to be that children's books were for wealthy parents and grandparents to buy," he recalls. "Now children are not working so hard in school, and more of them have time to read and surf the Web. I think the market will be growing for another five years, and I am pleased to see the development of good Korean illustrators, too."
Changing Dynamics of Door-to-Door
Expensive, beautifully produced sets of books for children have been popular for decades in Korea among households who can afford them. In the last decade, that business was declining, but by refocusing on more economical production and by targeting home education, publishers have been able to expand the market in door-to-door to the growing middle class.
Visiting the headquarters of the publishing giant Kyowon is more like visiting a religious order than a publishing house. Chairman Chang Pyung-soon founded the company in 1985 and has succeeded in building an army (over 20,000) of highly motivated door-to-door salesmen. He believes his is now the world's largest such operation.
The company's Kumon Study program boasts one million students under 11 years old for six subject areas, with 6,500 participating teachers; the subscription audience of its monthly magazine Red Pen is over half a million.
To maintain the momentum, there are various in-house training facilities throughout the country. With the zeal of the Encyclopedia Britannica of an earlier day, Kyowon has branched out into entertainment titles and to various media, including English-language learning over the telephone. The main focus remains educational books, mostly in science, math and languages, in sets sold door-to-door. Their growth in the last three years has dispelled the notion that the door-to-door market is fading in Korea.
Chang already works with World Book, Harcourt Brace and Creative Teaching Press from the U.S., as well as with DeAgostini and DK, translating their materials for the various series on offer. This year, Kyowon will publish new materials for preschool children and will offer prenatal care topics for mothers, completing an educational course for the whole cycle of the audience.
Its main competition is taking the Internet seriously, too. Formerly Woongjin Publishing, Woongjin.com is one of the country's top five houses and one of the two now public. It celebrated its 20th anniversary with this name change and a grand promotion in April of last year of its expansion to the Internet.
Lois Kim, foreign rights and sales manager of international operations, tells PW, "The Internet is a very efficient tool for the second use of contents we own or have copyrighted, not to mention its value in promoting or marketing."
Woongjin started in 1980 with children's books, and became a leader in door-to-door sets for children. The company has been restructuring since the economic downturn in 1997. Now it is creating more affordable packages to help parents educate and entertain their children at home, and new retail products as well. The company is scheduled to publish a total of 280 new titles by the end of this year, 60% of them translations.
One of its bestsellers is the DK Eyewitness series, which has sold five million copies in 60 volumes at 660,000 won per set. Its World Book Encyclopedia in Korean is still very big, too.
"Math and science series are important for us," Kim tells PW. "So are picture books. But we had to fight over Korean rights to them at Bologna the last two years. The unexpected expansion of door-to-door sales and the children's market have forced Korean publishers to go abroad looking for new titles. The children's market shows great potential and is growing fast." But Kim is concerned about the large number of Korean publishers leaping into children's titles. "Many of them lack experience in developing a market for children," she notes.
This year Woongjin booked a stand at Bologna. "We wanted to show our titles and Korean talents to the world. Many other Asian publishers and French publishers especially took an interest in our titles this year," she reports. Japan is one of its biggest sources for translated materials, but the importance of the U.S., U.K. and France is growing. In September, Woongjin will do HarperCollins's Let's Read and Find-Out Science series, in 60 volumes.
Two New Children's Publishers
Another second-generation publishing house, Areah, is run by Chongwon Lim, son of the now-retired head of Dongwha Books and Publishing. (The name Areah is from one of four now-defunct characters in the Korean alphabet.) The parent company has a 30-year history in retailing and publishing and has leapt into the children's book market recently with the picture books of Anthony Browne, Leo Lionni, William Steig, Quentin Blake and Dav Pilkey.
As both a bookseller and publisher, Lim says, "I haven't felt any particular problem running both companies so far. I think retailing gives you the right ideas about how the market is going."
Gimm-Young Publishers Inc. was primarily focused towards business titles. Like so many, it have now begun to attend Bologna and buy rights for translation. But the house enjoyed an interesting leg up on online promotion and ideas. "We always felt there was a gap in the market in Korea for ages 10 to 13, so we introduced titles in six subject areas for them," says the dynamic young Eun-Ju Park, president and daughter of the founder of the 20-year-old company. "Bologna is a great place for finding this kind of material."
Gimm-Young is publishing, among others, Nick Arnold's Horrible Science series from Scholastic. Starting with 30 titles the first year (1999), they have been so successful that many other publishers are now trying the formula.
The Aht! Series, which incorporates Horrible Science titles, has been one of the most successful collections for this age group to date, with 70 titles so far selling over one million copies, all through bookstores, schools and libraries.
Gimm-Young is also doing a new line of preschool picture books from different parts of the world. "We find a lot of good things from Scandinavia, especially," Park tells PW. The subjects tends to be math, science and art, mostly educational, but with some fiction as well. The house also does Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series from Scholastic, which is selling "okay," according to Park, though there has been some resistance among parents, who consider the books to be irreverent.
"Right now, the easiest way to reach the children is via the Internet," says Park. "More than half of Koreans have Internet access; we are very advanced in this area." A computer science graduate herself, Park explains the success of the Internet as "very appropriate for Korean culture: we are adventurous, fast and impatient. Even preschoolers are using the Internet, and parents help their children with online activities at home."
Last year, her company established three Internet companies. One is technology-based, providing e-book technology solutions, and works with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture to create children's textbooks for delivery of online.
Gimm-Young also has its own Web site, , and an Internet bookstore, Booksetong (which translates as Book Buzz). "This is different from the others," Park explains. "It is essentially a wholesaler online, a channel from publishers to warehouse to retailers, so publishers can tell which books are selling and who is buying them. It has very detailed information that was not available before to the industry. It doesn't bother anyone that it is my company, they still want that data!" Gimm-Young also sells books through other online retail sites, such as Yes24 and Alladin.
Park has no problem with the discounting offered by online booksellers in Korea, she says. "The computer is a natural for us and widens our vision as a publisher." Now she is trying to deliver selected titles by mobile phone. The mobile phone companies have their own software for delivering books over mobile units.
All this aside, Gimm-Young has a long-established reputation for its list of business nonfiction, including authors such as George Soros and Stephen R. Covey. "Our core market is yuppie men," says Park with a smile. When she took over the company, it was doing 20 new titles a year. Now it does 100, with a list of over 1,000 now in print. It is new to children's book publishing, but is taking the category very seriously. Gimm-Young plans to go public next year, and will be the first retail-based publishing house to do so. "We will be a company to keep an eye on," Park promises.
