Are you looking for Korean language books to improve your Korean reading skills? Then this post is for you.
Via Ridibooks you can buy Korean ebooks and also read many of them for free online (legally!). Find out how you can create an account on this Korean-only website.
The offer of both well-known writers and unknown writers (with many followers) is large. Often the first parts of a book series (of authors unknown to me) and manga are free to read and it is not expensive to buy the sequels. If you mainly use the books to learn Korean, then the free books will last you a long time.
Table of Contents
How to sign up for Ridibooks?
1) On the Home screen, press 회원가입 to sign up
2) Then 일반 회원가입
3) Fill in your account information
Your ID should be 5-20 characters, all lowercase letters (our alphabet) or numbers. Your password should be at least 8 characters, using at least two of the following character types: lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.
4) Enter the number you receive by email within one hour to confirm your email address. Press 확인 to confirm
5) Success! Hit 완료 to complete
After creating your account, the next step is to find the Korean language book you want to read.
How to find free Korean ebooks?
1) Click on the menu button to see the category filters
2) Choosing a category
It opens with 소설 (novels). Here you can choose between different types of novels. For example 로맨스 (romance), 판타지 (fantasy), 만화 (manga), 라이트노벨 (light novels), BL (boys love) or 웹툰 (webtoon). For some, there is a further division between 단행본 (full length book) and 연재 (series; short books). All categories have their own subcategories as well.
3) Narrowing it down
Within each category, you can filter by 신간 (new books), 베스트셀러 (bestseller), 무료책 (free books) and 전체 (all books). The free books category is probably the most interesting to start with. Even without going to the free books page, you can see a 1권 무려 (1 book free) label on some books which means that you can read the first book for free. For series (연재; shorter ebooks) you can often read many parts for free. Look for the [any number]권 무료 or [any number]화 무료 label on the book covers.
Buying, lending or downloading a book for free
On Ridibooks you can buy (구매), lend (대여) or download books (다운로드) for free. Lending is the cheapest method, but might not be for you because you need to finish the book within a certain time period. For example, you can lend one of the books for three days or all 18 books for 54 days. This is cheaper than buying them.
As a Korean language learner reading a free book here and there will probably be sufficient. There are thousands of books to choose from!
Most books have a free sample (미리보기) that will help you choose.
Read more: How to buy (physical) Korean books?
How to pay for an ebook?
1) Buy a book
Navigate to the page of the book you want to buy and click on the blue 구매하기 button to buy it.
2) Select a payment method
- You’ll probably need to select 해외 발행 신용카드, as you will pay with a foreign credit card. Unless one of the other payment options is available to you. For instance, you can link one of the other methods like Samsung Pay to your PayPal account.
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Accept the terms and conditions (상품, 가격, 할인 정보, 유의 사항 등을 확인하였으며 구매에 동의합니다.)
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Press 결제하기
3) Fill in your credit card details
You can then fill in your credit card information. The follow-up screens are in English.
How to download a free ebook?
Click on the 다운로드 (download) button next to a free book. You’ll get a confirmation notice on the top of your screen. You can find the manga and books you bought in your library (내 서재).
When browsing online: You can find the 내 서재 (My Library) button in the top right corner of the Ridibooks website. Click on the cover of the manga or ebook you want to download. You’ll find a download button (전체 도운로드) on the next page. This download button redirects you to the desktop app where you can click on the cover of the manga or ebook to download it.
When using the app: Go to your 내 서재 (My Library) using the button at the bottom left corner in your Ridibooks app (for Android at least). The download button is on the front cover of the manga or ebook in your library.
How to read your free Korean ebook?
After adding the ebook to your bookshelf, you can download the book in your Ridibooks app.
1) Login
2) Download
1) First login to your account
2) On the 내 서재 (My Library) page you see some free ebook suggestions from Ridibooks. Head to 구매 목록 (Purchase List) to find the book you just downloaded.
Click on the download button on the book cover and then click on the book to start reading.
3) Navigation
On the menu bar below you can have a robot read the book out loud (듣기), see the table of contents (목차), see your reading notes (독서노트), change the font and font size (보기 설정) and adjust other reading settings (뷰어 설정).
Using the dictionary while reading
1) Highlight
2) Search
1) Highlight/select a word. As you can’t select words in Manga because the words are part of the pictures, you can not use the dictionary functionality while reading Manga.
Click on the three dots to show more options.
3) Choose 검색 (search).
3) Dictionary entry
4) Your phone will then open Naver to show you the translation. Make sure you have 영어사전 (English dictionary) selected. Unless you prefer the Korean explanation of course. Click on the arrow in the upper left corner to return to your book.
Reading 19+ content
If you like romance novels, then you’ll feel limited by the 19+ restrictions. Without a Korean bank account or phone number, you can’t get automatic age confirmation. You can however send a copy of your passport directly to their customer service and ask them for approval. Previously you could do this by sending an email, but now there is a special form for it. I have updated this blog post accordingly.
Some guidance for the Overseas Adult Verification Form (해외 거주 고객 성인인증 접수):
- Name (이름): Fill in your name as listed in your ID.
- Date of birth (생년월일): Your date of birth in the format YYMMDD, f.e. 881219 for 19 December 1988.
- Type of ID (신분증 종류): Select your type of ID. You can choose between the following:
- Overseas passport (해외 여권)
- Overseas driver’s license (해외 운전면허증)
- Overseas residence permit (해외 거주 허가증)
- Another ID card that can be verified overseas (기타 해외 증빙가능 신분증)
- Country that issued the ID (발행 국가): The country your ID is from. This can not be South Korea.
- Expiry date (유효 기간): Expired IDs are not allowed, because they can’t be validated by Ridibooks. They don’t mention a date format, so I assume they’re looking for YYMMDD again.
- Consent 1 (이름 및 생년정보 변경 동의): Your name and date of birth in this form must be the same as in the ID you attach. If not, you consent to them changing the name and date of birth in this request so that it matches what’s in your ID.
- Consent 2 (개인정보 수집 동의): You consent to them collecting your personal information for processing this adult verification request. They collect your name, date of birth, overseas identification card, and address if listed. Their retention policy allows them to store your information for up to 30 days, after which it is destroyed.
- Attach your ID (해외 신분증 첨부): Attach your ID here. The file must be smaller than 20MB. You must cross out all personal information (including your picture) except for your name and date of birth. All information related to your ID (like expiry date) must remain visible.
- Send button (제출): Hit the send button to send your request.
If Ridibooks approves your request, you will see the 19+ content after logging out and logging back into your account after receiving an email about your approval. This can take up to three days excluding weekends and holidays.
Also read: Best Korean books with English translation
That’s all, let me know if you have any questions or tips for other Korean language learners.
hi kim! i’ve been able to verify my age and purchase my book. however, I’ve been trying to download the book as a epub/pdf so I may machine translate it. However, I’ve been having trouble doing so and I was wondering if you knew how to do it? otherwise i feel purchasing has no point. thanks!
Hi!
As far as I know you can’t download your purchases. They put some protection on it so that you can only open the book with their app.
You can however select full sentences or more and use the built-in dictionary option (검색). From there you can copy the text to another translation tool.
Kind regards,
Kim
Hello, thank you so much for this! It’s very detailed and help us a lot.
If possible, could you also create a similar guide for kakaopage please? Thank you!
Hi Laurine,
I haven’t used Kakaopage in a long time, but as far as I remember the sign up procedure is in English? What exactly are you looking for in a guide? Tips on how to navigate?
Kind regards,
Kim
hi! thank you for this!! i wanted to ask if there´s a way that i can read the books online? like in my laptop without the app? its because i want to use the google translator but i dont know how 🙁
Hi,
You can download Ridibooks on your laptop as well, please check out https://ridibooks.com/support/app/download. You can´t copy the text from the book directly in order to paste it in google translate (you can however type the words yourself), but you can select text and then use the inbuilt dictionary (Korean to Korean, but also Korean to English) to look up words and phrases. This only works for novels, as you can’t copy text from manga pictures.
Kind regards,
Kim
Thank you so much for this guide! I’ve been racking my brain trying to get past the age restriction block and your page has been extremely helpful. I just completed the form and am hoping to hear back from them soon.
I noticed on your “payment” chapter that there’s an icon that looks like they accept Apple Pay. Can you confirm if they do?
Hi Abby,
Glad I could help. Have fun reading!
As for Apple Pay, so far I haven’t seen the logo as one of the payment options. At least not something I recognized as such. So I don’t think it is an option, but you can play around a bit with your shopping cart and see what happens.
Kind regards,
Kim
Hi. Is there another way to purchase books in Ridi without using credit card (issued overseas)?
Hi Yuri,
You can see the other payment options in the screenshot in this chapter. If you have it, Samsung Pay is an option for those of us living outside of South Korea. I don’t think the other options can be used, but I haven’t tried either.
Kind regards,
Kim
Hi, did you send your email to the ridi chat? I can’t seem to find where I can send my email.
also, thank you so much for sharing this! 🙂
Hi Mia,
Thanks for your comment.
You mean the email about 19+ access? I used the customer service contact form on their website. I see they changed their website by the way and that the hyperlink I had included doesn’t lead you to the right page anymore.
You can now fill in a form that is only for this purpose: https://help.ridibooks.com/hc/ko/requests/new?ticket_form_id=1500000544502
The fields ask for your name, date of birth in a certain format (YYMMDD), type of ID, country that issued the ID and ID expiry date. You then have to consent twice and attach your ID (driver’s license, passport, residence permit, etc.).
I will update my blog post later this week, but hopefully you can go forward using the information in this comment.
Kind regards,
Kim
hey! thank you so much for this!! but i have a question, i followed your instructions and everything was right and ridibooks allowed me to have 19+ content but i already had bought some books in my acc, and now they are gone and the money i had is also gone :(( do you perhaps know something about it? thanks!
Hi ale,
That sounds really weird. I didn’t run into that problem. Perhaps you could send another email to their customer service to ask about this?
Kind regards,
Kim
Thanks a lot!!! I’m just waiting for my age verificaction 19+ in order to enjoy and support directly my fav writers ❤
Kisses from México!
Hello Kim, thank you so much for this!!! I have one question regarding the part about buying ebooks. Does it mean that I can use Paypal as long as I link it to Samsung Pay? Because I heard that Paypal is not acceptable on Ridibooks and I cant seem to use my card for payment.
Hi Winnie,
Samsung Pay is offered as one of the payment options, so I think it should work. But as I have never tried that myself, I don’t know for sure.
Kind regards, Kim
Hi, do they only accept passports? I havent renewed it yet because of the pandemic, it expired long ago.
Hi, I don’t know because I sent my passport. You could try sending another official identification card from your country like a driver’s license or a social security card.
THANKS A LOT !! This saved my life. I came across Ridi and was right away disappointed to find that the website text is all in Korean. I did not even expect that someone have laid the path already. Thanks again !!!
You’re welcome! Have fun reading.
Hi, i’m interested to buy a book with pdf format. After i buy & download it, it will available offline in my device right? Can i use any pdf viewer i have to read it?
As far as I know, you have to read all novels in the Ridibooks app or desktop environment. You can’t download a pdf.
Your tutorial gave me confidence to open a account in ridibooks and verefied my age in the costumer service mail. Thanks 🙏🏼
Thanks for your comment, that’s great to hear. Have fun reading!
Hello,
Hope you’re having a lovely day. I was just wondering if you could help me. I tried purchasing from Ridi for the 1st time today however I kept on receiving the same error message (after three attempts) “Invalid card number” after I typed in all the details. I can’t seem to find the reason since I used Mastercard which is valid till 2025.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Hi,
I just purchased a book using my credit card (Mastercard) and it went through just fine. Do you get the error message right after hitting submit (before the system asks for the valid date)?
Your best chance is probably to contact Ridibooks customer support. I have no experience communicating with them in English, but you can always try…
Kind regards,
Kim
Can I use gcash in foreign credit card?
Hi Luna,
I am not familiar with gcash, so I don’t know. Ridibooks accepts Mastercards, so if you have a GCash Mastercard it will probably work.
Please let us know when you find out.
Kind regards,
Kim
Hi do you know how long the process to get verified after sending them 19+ email with passport? It says my application was processed after one day but I logged out and logged in and nothing changed? Thank you!
Hi Jae,
For me, it took less than an hour to get approval. Did you receive an email with the following subject [리디북스] 고객님의 문의에 안내 드립니다 regarding your approval?
Kind regards,
Kim
How do I link my paypal to payco?
I looked into it some more and apparently, it seems like you can’t. Not the Korean PAYCO anyway, which is different from the services provided by PayCo. I updated the post accordingly.
hi i just wanted to ask if ridibooks has a system for free chapters a after a period of waiting. i think they have a system like that?
Yes, that’s right. Look for a blue clock icon in the top left corner of a cover. This is mainly the case with webtoons where a new chapter will become available daily. You can search for 리다무 to find an overview.
Does ridibook support paypal payment? And if there is, can you teach me?
Not directly as far as I can see. You can however link your PayPal account to one of the other payment options like Samsung Pay.
Hello… How do I download the manga that I already bought in Ridibooks?
You can find the manga and books you bought in your library (내 서재). Your library is either at the bottom left corner when using the Ridibooks app (for Android at least) or at the top right corner of your screen when browsing the Ridibooks website.
When using the app: the download button is on the front cover of the manga in your library.
When browsing online: click on the cover of the manga you want to download. You’ll find a download button (전체 도운로드) on the next page. This download button redirects you to the desktop app where you can click on the cover of the manga to download it.
Hi, Do you have a instruction how to buy a book and PAY for it on Ridibooks? :’)
Hi Marta,
You can follow these steps to buy a book:
1) Navigate to the page of the book you want to buy and click on the blue 구매하기 button to buy it.
2) You’ll probably need to select 해외 발행 신용카드, as you will pay with a foreign credit card. Unless one of the other payment options is available to you.
3) Accept the terms and conditions (상품, 가격, 할인 정보, 유의 사항 등을 확인하였으며 구매에 동의합니다.)
4) Press 결제하기
5) You can then fill in your credit card information. The follow-up screens are in English.
I will update the blogpost later this week with screenshots and instructions.
Kind regards,
Kim
Can i use another person’s ID
Theoretically speaking: probably. But morally speaking I would never advise such a thing. Besides, by doing that you might make it harder for other people to get approval in the future. I think it is great that they even offer this opportunity to foreigners.
Can we use any other form of ID other than a passport?
Hi Sarah,
You could try sending a driver’s license or another form of ID issued by your country. As I haven’t tried that, I don’t know if it works. Please let us know!
Kim