Professional Support for Early-Stage Publishers, Startups, and Solo Creators... 5:1 Competition Rate... 52 Teams Including Publishers, Illustrators, and Booktubers Join 1st Cohort
[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Mapo-gu (Mayor Yoo Dong-gyun) has opened the Mapo Publishing Culture Promotion Center (Platform P), a specialized support facility for early-stage publishing companies, startups, and individual creators in the publishing field, within the CO-STATION complex at Hongdae Ipgu Station.
The Mapo Publishing Culture Promotion Center (Platform P) is a creative hub space established by the district government on the 2nd and 3rd floors of CO-STATION inside the Hongdae Ipgu Station complex, covering a total floor area of 2,438.98m². It is designed to professionally support creators who make books and publishing companies taking their first steps.
The facility supports incubating for startups and companies, exhibitions, events, and networking among resident companies, and is expected to play a key role in the development of Mapo-gu's creative industry.
The 3rd floor (716.96㎡) startup support space in CO-STATION houses 20 independent offices, 32 open office seats, an open kitchen, meeting rooms, and a mini lounge. The 2nd floor (1,187.61㎡) cultural and creative space includes a book lounge, caf?, a multipurpose room with 80 seats, a workplace with over 60 seats, an editing room, and a multimedia room.
Recently, 20 resident companies and 32 individual creators have moved into the 3rd-floor workspace. This space is shared by various publishing-related creators including publishers, designers, illustrators, e-book producers, and booktubers.
Last month, over 250 teams applied for residency, resulting in a competition rate of more than 5:1. The district selected a total of 52 first-phase residents, including early-stage publishing companies, publishing-related startups, and individual creators.
Among the notable residents are illustrator Ahn Jae-seon, who won the 2020 Ragazzi Opera Prima Award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, the individual publishing company Gyulpresse founded by webtoon artist Su Shin-ji, who gained strong support from young audiences with the webtoon Myeoneuragi, young designer Park Go-eun who worked as an in-house designer at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and Mobidic Books, which attracted public attention by publishing the bestseller Yang Joon-il, MAYBE within a year of its founding.
Center Director Kim Hyun-ho said, “Publishing is a complex knowledge industry that simultaneously faces transitional challenges arising from the traditional distribution structures such as wholesale and fixed pricing, as well as the process of integrating with new media. By utilizing Platform P’s excellent infrastructure, we will be able to quickly diagnose and resolve the complex difficulties occurring on the ground.”
Mapo-gu, where workspaces for artists related to publishing and design are concentrated around the Hongdae area, plans to expand the role of Platform P by operating publishing-related seminars, conferences, expert mentoring programs, and jointly running various educational programs with the Korea Publishing Culture Association.
Yoo Dong-gyun, Mayor of Mapo-gu, stated, “Through the Mapo Publishing Culture Promotion Center, we will strengthen the leverage role to help recover the publishing and design industries, which have recently experienced sluggish business conditions. We will implement continuous scale-up support rather than one-off startup support by linking with the Mapo Publishing and Printing Smart Anchor, scheduled for completion in 2022,” outlining his vision.
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