There are complaints about e-books, stating that they don't use any paper but are not much cheaper either. Some people say that the quality of the e-books they purchased is poor and that it's a waste to pay that amount to read them. In a YouTube comment, someone asked to investigate why e-book prices don't seem much cheaper than paper books. 

The complaints about e-books ultimately stem from the perception that they are more expensive than expected. According to a report from the Korea Consumer Agency, consumers responded in a survey that they believe e-book prices should be about 39.2% of the average price of paper books. However, when analyzing the online selling prices of the top 10 bestsellers from Kyobo Bookstore, it was found that in eight out of the ten titles, the e-book prices were selling at 70 to 80% of the price of the paper books. This shows a clear disparity between the publishers' and consumers' perceptions. Even when considering costs, e-books do not require physical storage and have lower distribution management costs, such as servers.

Aside from platform costs, there really isn't much else, and since infinite reproduction is possible, wouldn't it be possible to sell it cheaper considering that it's in second place? A large publishing company said there is a reason they can't drastically lower prices. If they were to only release e-books, that could work. The problem is that if e-books are sold too cheaply, it affects the sales of printed books. For instance, if a printed book is sold for 10,000 won and an e-book for 1,000 won, no one would buy the printed copies that have already been printed. It's hard to mitigate that risk. It's a somewhat difficult explanation to understand, but it sounds like they are saying it's problematic to set e-book prices too low. From this, we can infer that the prices of e-books in Korea are linked to the prices of printed books, especially hardcover editions, and that publishing companies, which cannot afford to give up the printed book market, are setting e-book prices based on that standard.

What is the reason for the continued reliance on the existing paper book market? First of all, the revenue share obtained from this market is overwhelming. According to a report from the Korea Publishing Culture Contents Center, paper book sales accounted for 58.2% of the domestic publishing market revenue as of 2021. Although this has decreased significantly from 69.2% in 2017, it still remains the largest segment. Given this heavy reliance on the paper book market, publishers find themselves in a difficult situation if they incur losses and fail to compensate with profits from the e-book market. In summary, to ensure stable revenue, publishers are taking a conservative approach by prioritizing the paper book market. The disparity between price expectations and reality is so large that it cannot benefit the overall publishing market in the long run. Even if readers want to buy affordable and easily accessible e-books, the high prices deter them from making purchases, preventing the market size from expanding sufficiently, and leading the publishing industry back to paper books.

It is a vicious cycle that relies solely on the market. So, is the situation significantly different abroad? Upon examination, it didn't seem to be the case. When we directly compared the prices of the top ten bestselling paper books and e-books on Amazon last year, only two of the e-books were priced 70% lower than their paper counterparts. Surprisingly, there were even four instances where the e-books were more expensive than the paper books among the ten. Of course, in the English-speaking publishing market, the demand is already large enough that lowering e-book prices is not necessary, making direct comparisons somewhat unreasonable. If we decide to lower the prices of e-books, how far can we actually go? I obtained internal data on how a large domestic publishing company measured the costs of two recently published books. The costs incurred for the paper, printing, and other related expenses accounted for a significant portion of the overall costs.

It was about 40%, but just looking at this, there is a lot of room for thought. So, could we not have a promotional event like a game sale in the team? However, that is blocked by the fixed book price system. The fixed book price system is a law that determines the maximum discount rate for books. Because of this law, e-books already have a nominal fixed price set, and in reality, they are sold at a price that is 10% lower than that, which is the legal maximum. Web novels are also bound by this regulation, and recently, a web novel author even filed a constitutional petition with the Constitutional Court, but it was dismissed last year. There is also an unintended balloon effect. The demand for e-books is shifting not towards purchases but towards subscription services like Millie. The book price regulation does not cover rental fees or subscription fees, so they can provide services at much cheaper prices, which could have been an opportunity for publishers to sell e-books.

It’s a disappointing situation if we consider that we are missing out on people. To conclude, the high prices of e-books are largely the result of the existing publishing market, which is based on printed books, and the previous systems that existed before the advent of digital books. The prices need to drop significantly for the market to expand, which in turn would help improve the quality of e-books and the performance of platforms more quickly. However, it still seems like we have a long way to go. If you would like to request coverage, please leave a comment. Currently, there’s a request to find out the recent situation of Jeon Hong-yong, who is famous as a nutria hunter. If you subscribe and set notifications, the results of the coverage will be posted soon.

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