I lived through the times when professionals in the publishing industry save money and visit international book fairs to see, learn and seek business - all to buy copyrights from international publishers. We read their catalogs, heard what the editors told us about new books for export. They provided us content to consider publishing in Korea.
What we are offering of the Korean books to international publishers do have content in the name of promotion - but do they?
As a translation and literary agency, we have been able to read what Korean publishers offer for foreign publishers - the content is made for Korean readers, not publishers. The same is true to most other products for international sale - they have their Korean content designed for Korean buyers translated into other languages.
Questions I have are:
For whom are their original materials made?
For whom are their translated materials for?
The answer to Question 1 is for end customers - parents and children in the case of children's books, or look lovers looking for a book to read.
However the answer to Question 2 is for editors of international publishers, who are to select which books to publish in their language and publishing company for their readers.
We introduce books and other products, intellectual and cultural, from Korea with answers to Question 2.
Jungsook Kim