Due to digital initiatives plus a strong list of titles, the 50-year-old UK publisher keeps growing its business, despite increasing competition from the outside traditional publishing.

Even as we listen to Kogan Page’s leadership today concerning the rights landscape with this independent house’s business and management specialty, we also have several titles the company is presenting for rights sales. You will find those at the conclusion of this story.-Porter Anderson
Chinese Rights Sales Now Leading
China has become Kogan Page‘s most efficient rights territory, as the UK publisher marks its 50th anniversary.
Founded by Philip Kogan in 1967, it’s got remained independent throughout its half-century, and it’s run today by Philip’s daughter Helen Kogan, who’s managing director.

The business recently made industry headlines with all the timely buying of two cyber-attack titles, announced from the same week as the global ransomware attack. Both these titles are scheduled for spring 2018:

Cyberwars: The Hacks that Shook the globe is by former Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur and may consider the dramatic inside stories of a number of the world’s biggest cyber-attacks such as Clinton election campaign as well as recent global events.
Cyber Risk Management, is by Richard Benham in the UK’s National Cyber Skills Centre and may, in accordance with promotional copy, offer “vital guidance on the best way to evaluate threats and communicate a cyber-security strategy to assist in preventing the trillions of dollars which can be lost globally annually.”
Publishing Perspectives spoke to Helen Kogan about how precisely the company has was able to remain independent, its current rights activity, and just how the joy of Best Business Books publishing is evolving.

‘Discoverable In the World’

Publishing Perspectives: As Kogan Page enters its sixth decade, how’s business?
Helen Kogan: We’re creating a great year. We’re almost at the conclusion of our financial year and we’re seeing double-digit growth across all revenue streams. We’ve also won two transformational publishing contracts with all the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and the Chartered Institute of Banking for both academic and professional development titles.

We’re planning to launch a searchable digital platform for B2B customers and we’re also planning to launch our first online courses. It’s been a very exciting breakthrough year following 4 years of refocus and progression of our value proposition.

PP: It is possible to particular focus in your rights activity?

HK: The expansion and additional development of Beijing Book Fair may be particularly good for us, and the sale of Chinese rights is currently our greatest territory.

However, we have our titles translated into 50 different languages now and, interestingly, this isn’t just limited to our very popular general business titles. We’ve had success by incorporating of our more specialist titles too, in the field of logistics and hr.

We’ve forever been internationally-focused and currently sell our titles into 90 countries with key territories being The united states, Europe, Southeast Asia, the very center East, Australia, India, and China.

We have offices in the US and India plus a wide network of agents globally. We’re fortunate to create in English-the international language of business-and that business and management can be a global subject. We’ve really cheated global supply chains in recent years and, with the progression of digital bibliographic and marketing feeds, will have the extraordinary power to make our titles discoverable all over the world.

‘A Very Crowded Marketplace’

PP: What are main issues facing business and professional publishers?
HK: A major issue is that we’re now encompassed by content producers.

It’s merely traditional publishers that disseminate business content, and it’s an incredibly crowded marketplace. Training companies, member organizations, business schools and management consultancies are a few of the serious non-traditional competition we need to consider. However, we’ve spent the final 3 years defining our value proposition and points of difference and think we still need a persuasive and competitive business with significant chance of further growth.

PP: The amount of a threat is open access? The ‘knowledge needs to be free’ camp can be be extremely persuasive. Will it create a place where students will be more hesitant to purchase content?

HK: I think it’s difficult to persuade students to pay for content when they’ve been utilized to ‘free’. Really have to have the educational institutes to aid us with this also to increase the risk for case that at the conclusion of the road is definitely an author that has come up with book and will be compensated accordingly.

Around “free” can be a challenge Furthermore, i think that the threat to non-linear narrative, through other media formats, is problematic. We’re looking at how you will offer a lot more three-dimensional and interactive experience in the future to take on changing consumer reading habits.

PP: How has Kogan Page was able to stay independent?

HK: Bloody-mindedness, resilience, opportunism-all those actions and even more.

PP: How many workers have you got and what’s your turnover?

HK: We have 35 staff and growing. Our turnover is ?4.5 million (US$5.6 000 0000) but in the subsequent financial year this can grow close to ?5.5 million (US$7.2 million) through organic growth and the inclusion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development’s list. There was to take a success on our top line in the last several years even as we refocused a part of our activity on specialist areas however this year we’re seeing the fruits of that work and have a much 12-percent growth.

Benefitting Coming from a Weak Pound

PP: What effect you think Brexit can have?
HK: It’s difficult to say at this stage. We will need to hope that we won’t experience tariffs as this will clearly incorporate some impact. Costs of materials can also be a worry and we’ll have to watch this. We hold English-language world and digital rights for the vast majority of our list and this should mitigate having to take on US editions in Europe (an evergrowing concern amongst other publishers).

Hopefully sanity will prevail and the threat hanging over our European colleagues’ directly to be in the united states will probably be addressed swiftly as an alternative to making use of it being a bargaining chip.

On the plus side, we’ve certainly benefited from the weakness in the pound contrary to the dollar.

PP: Where would you sell your main books?

HK: 70 % of our sales still feel the traditional supply chain-bookshops, trusted online stores, wholesalers, and so forth. However, our Site sales are increasing and now we possess a thriving B2B sales activity for member organizations, author networks, and corporates.

PP: What’s the split between digital and print in your business?

HK: Digital accounts for 25 % of revenue with all the balance of the being delivered from digital licensing to academic library suppliers, aggregators, and corporate content suppliers. Our ebook business has stayed fairly stable around 8 percent of overall revenue.
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