[In-Depth Look] 'A Country Without Bookstores, A Country Without Hope'

Ham Hyeri / Journalist · Cultural Critic

Although it now feels like a dream because of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), one of the most impressive places I visited during my trip to southern France two years ago was a bookstore in Aix-en-Provence.

It was not large in size but seemed to have been there for many years. A child was sitting on the floor reading a fairy tale book, and the child's mother was choosing books nearby. Sunlight streaming through the window illuminated the shelves densely packed with books, and an elderly couple sitting in comfortable chairs placed here and there had temporarily placed their books on their laps to enjoy tea while chatting in low voices. What a peaceful and refined scene it was! It was a place that inspired me to someday open a small bookstore in a scenic location.

However, I soon realized that my small wish was quite naive and unrealistic. The biggest reason is the continuous decline in the reading population. According to the 2019 National Reading Population Survey, the annual reading rate among adults over the past year was 52.1%, and the number of books read was 6.1, which decreased by 7.8 percentage points and 2.2 books respectively compared to the previous year. According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey by Statistics Korea, spending on entertainment culture has steadily increased, while spending on book purchases, a component of entertainment culture expenses, has continuously decreased by more than 6% since 2010.

The next issue is structural. Small neighborhood bookstores purchase books from wholesalers at about 75-80% of the retail price. In contrast, large bookstores and online bookstores receive supplies at 50-60% of the list price. They have the capacity to offer a 10% discount, 5% points, and free shipping. Being discriminated against from the supply price, neighborhood bookstores with poor finances cannot survive price competition with large bookstores. I heard an even more extreme story from the owner of a small bookstore on the East Coast I visited recently. Since wholesalers do not supply books at all, they purchase books online with a 10% discount and stock them. They do not think about making money from selling books but supplement rent by selling coffee and other beverages.

There is another reason why I think I must give up the hope for small bookstores. The book price stabilization system, which has contributed significantly to helping neighborhood bookstores survive, is now being shaken. The current book price stabilization system, implemented since November 2014, deleted the clause that exempted publications older than 18 months from the system, allowing price changes, and also applied the system to e-books. Because books are purchased at the same price everywhere, more people have bought books at neighborhood bookstores, and many independent bookstores have increased nationwide. It has also encouraged one-person publishers, leading to a continuous increase in publishers and published books in recent years.

According to the amendment announced by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ahead of the November 20 review deadline, books sold at book fairs and long-term stock books will be excluded from the book price stabilization system, and the discount rate for e-books will be expanded to 20-30%. Serialized webtoons and web novels will also be excluded from the system.

The book price stabilization system stipulated in Article 22 of the Publishing Culture Industry Promotion Act was created to prohibit price competition among sellers. The reason for creating such a system under the principle of a free competitive market is to treat books as cultural assets that need protection, to publish various books, and to widely distribute them. It helps small and medium-sized publishers and neighborhood bookstores and allows consumers to access diverse books. To protect this purpose and value, Germany and France sell books at the same price to the final consumer everywhere, while allowing publishers to change the list price at their discretion at any time.

If the amendment is enacted, discount competition by large bookstores in the form of book fairs will begin and will act like a black hole sucking in consumers with thinner wallets. Neighborhood bookstores barely holding on will not survive. While considering consumers is important, saving neighborhood bookstores, which are cultural welfare hubs centered on books and high-quality community culture, is also crucial from the perspective of a democratic civil society's cultural welfare.

Even if the book price stabilization system is not strengthened like in Germany and France, it is necessary to maintain the current system. Also, to protect small and medium bookstores that have become more vulnerable due to COVID-19, correcting the disparity in book supply rates is an urgent task. Linking public libraries with small and medium bookstores would also be a good measure.

Amid the controversy surrounding the book price stabilization system, the phrase from a bookstore owner who decided to close a bookstore that had been operated non-profit for over ten years on November 28 lingers in my ears: "A country without bookstores is a country without hope."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.