How Many Copies Has My Book Sold... Sales Volume Now Verifiable on the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Announces Improvement Plan for Integrated Publishing Distribution Network

On the 6th, as the heatwave rages, citizens are cooling off at Kyobo Bookstore Gwanghwamun Branch in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] Authors can now directly check the sales figures of their books on the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on the 26th that, together with the Korea Publication Industry Promotion Agency, it has improved the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network to enhance convenience for publishers and authors.

A notable change is that authors can now verify their book sales figures. When an author requests a report on the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network and the publisher completes the author identity verification process, a report containing sales statistics aggregated by book is sent to the author in a PDF format marked with an authentication seal.

Previously, authors had to separately request reports from publishers, who then sent statistical files (Excel) to authors via email through the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network.

The functions used by publishers have also been made more convenient. Reflecting feedback that the standard bibliographic information (metadata) fields entered by publishers into the network were numerous, the system now reduces the number of fields publishers must input directly by linking with the National Library of Korea’s International Standard Book Number (ISBN) deposit system.

Additionally, publishers can now easily create promotional materials for new books within the network and distribute or send them all at once to desired bookstores and distributors. Real-time book sales results, which previously only showed total book quantities, now provide detailed statistics by region, bookstore, age, and gender, enabling use in publishing planning and marketing.

With these improvements, local bookstores and libraries can receive information on new and upcoming books in advance and obtain regional book sales statistics to assist in collection planning. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism expects this to resolve information imbalances faced by local bookstores.

Furthermore, a new inventory management service for local bookstores has been established, allowing bookstore owners to easily monitor stock status and link inventory information with the local bookstore platform 'SeojeomON' (ON) book reservation service, helping consumers with book purchases.

For librarians, new functions for comparative price quotes and downloading order lists have been added to facilitate bulk book purchasing tasks.

The Ministry and the Promotion Agency have built the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network to manage production, distribution, and sales information of books in an integrated manner, launching it in September last year. However, due to conflicts over the operating entity, publisher participation remains low. As of this month, 2,982 publishers and 343 bookstores have joined the network.

A Ministry official stated, "We will strive to expand publisher and bookstore membership and improve user-centered functions conveniently, so that the Integrated Publishing Distribution Network can become a beneficial system for all, in line with the original purpose of ensuring transparency in book distribution."

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