Citizens purchase books by writer Han Kang, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, at Kyobo Bookstore in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on October 11 last year. Han Su-bin reporter

[Weekly Kyunghyang] "It is rare for a neighborhood bookstore not to be in the red, and it is even rarer for one to turn a profit from selling books. Even when business is brisk, more often the money comes from selling beverages in the store or renting out the space. Quite a few bookstore owners also work a 'second job'." So says the owner of a neighborhood bookstore in their third year.

A neighborhood bookstore is more than a shop that simply sells the object called a book. When a bookstore opens in a neighborhood, more people gather to read around it, communities form, and residents' lives become richer. Some people keep returning even after moving, seeking to maintain the relationships and experiences from that space. Some also say that many open bookstores less for profit than for relationships or values in life. In many cases, people start bookstores even while knowing from the outset that they will not make money.

The number of neighborhood bookstores grew sharply starting with the full introduction of the fixed book price system in 2014. This system prohibits selling books at a discount beyond a set rate off the list price. Before the system was fully implemented, its scope was limited to books within 18 months of publication, so large publishers or big-box stores could sell other titles at prices far lower than those at neighborhood shops. In 2014, however, the law was revised to apply the fixed price to all books, making the business seem doable even for local bookstores. Yet more than a decade on, conditions are far from easy. At a senior secretaries meeting last October, President Lee Jae-myung said, "The disappearance of neighborhood bookstores and other problems are serious. Devise support measures for literature, including the publishing sector."

How can we save them

The struggles of neighborhood bookstores stem from a mix of factors, including fewer people reading and a preference for e-books, but differences in revenue structures compared with large chains are also cited as a cause.

A prime example is the gap in supply rates. The supply rate is the percentage of the list price at which a bookstore receives inventory. The higher the rate, the smaller the margin when the store sells the book. For example, if a book lists at 20,000 won and the store receives it at a supply rate of 80%, the store's margin is 4,000 won. If the rate drops to 60%, 8,000 won remains. Large chains and online retailers receive books directly from publishers, allowing them to push for lower supply rates. In contrast, neighborhood bookstores source through wholesalers or large retailers, incurring extra costs and ultimately making less on the same title. Coupang, which recently jumped in in earnest, drew controversy over pressuring publishers for low supply rates and shifting promotional costs onto them. The crucial point is that, unlike Coupang and large chains, neighborhood bookstores run by individuals can scarcely even get to the negotiating table on supply rates.

Some online retailers, such as Aladin, use workarounds in which, when a customer uses a specific credit card, points and the like effectively push the discount beyond what the fixed book price law allows. In France, when U.S. e-commerce company Amazon threatened the domestic book market from 2014, the country enacted what is commonly called the 'Anti-Amazon Law', which barred Amazon from offering free shipping on books. Korea has no regulation of this sort. In many respects, the structure makes it hard for neighborhood bookstores to beat large chains.

Jo Jin-seok, head of Chaekbang Ieum, said, "In truth, the full-scale introduction of the fixed book price system largely served as a way for online bookstores to survive," adding, "Before talking about support programs for all bookstores, the first priority is to set the same starting line for competition between online and offline bookstores."

There have been steady calls for tailored policies that can actually help keep neighborhood bookstores afloat. In 2023, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration eliminated the entire budget of 6 billion won for the National Reading Culture Promotion Support Program, forcing numerous small bookstores to discontinue programs they had run, such as author talks and reader events. Kim Young-su, head of Chaekgwa Aideul, said, "In support programs for neighborhood bookstores, labor costs and rent are often not itemized separately, and even for events like author talks, support is limited to items such as manuscript fees or writer booking fees." Jo Jin-seok said, "Most government support programs provide no incentives to bookstores and often end up at best maintaining the status quo or even putting them in the red," adding, "It is irresponsible to say that because bookstore owners love what they do, they should shoulder everything when there is no public support at all."

There are also arguments that, in the long term, reading policies in the education field need to move in tandem. Yoon Tae-won, who runs Indie Munhak Branch No. 1, a neighborhood bookstore in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province, said, "To increase the reading population, public education must start by cultivating the habit of reading from an early age."

The spatial value of bookstores

Experts say neighborhood bookstores are spaces where labor, human bonds, and serendipitous encounters blend, and that efforts are needed to preserve diversity.

Park So-hyeon, a professor of architecture at Seoul National University who runs the neighborhood bookstore Dosisangdam in Seongsan-dong and is the author of <Walking the Neighborhood, Planning the Neighborhood>, said, "Operations are tough, so many bookstores disappear, yet just as many open," adding, "When the internet first emerged, people said paper books would vanish; as online spaces advanced, they said relationships among people would disappear. Rather than either side disappearing completely, there is a tendency for both to coexist." She continued, "After the COVID-19 period, dramatic changes such as working from home occurred, yet the desire for offline spaces where people meet one another, such as neighborhood bookstores, has increased globally." In fact, Barnes & Noble, the well-known U.S. bookstore chain that was sold in 2019 after being pushed by Amazon, is expanding its presence, operating 58 brick-and-mortar stores across the United States as of 2024.

Han Mi-hwa, a publishing critic and author of <Exploring the Survival of Neighborhood Bookstores>, said, "A bookstore is a space rarely seen in a capitalist society. Most commercial spaces require payment to enter, but a bookstore possesses both commercial and public qualities," adding, "Human beings cannot live while thinking only about earning money 24 hours a day or focusing solely on competition. We need spaces other than arenas of competition, and neighborhood bookstores play an important role as such spaces."

한글기사 원본(Original Korean Story)