Because of digital initiatives as well as a strong report on titles, the 50-year-old UK publisher is increasing its business, despite increasing competition external to traditional publishing.
Once we hear from Kogan Page’s leadership today in regards to the rights landscape within this independent house’s business and management specialty, we also have several titles the business is presenting for rights sales. You’ll find those at the conclusion of this story.-Porter Anderson
Chinese Rights Sales Now Leading
China has grown to be Kogan Page‘s most productive 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 acquiring two cyber-attack titles, announced in the same week as the global ransomware attack. These two titles are scheduled for spring 2018:
Cyberwars: The Hacks that Shook the globe is as simple as former Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur and will look at the dramatic inside stories of some of the world’s biggest cyber-attacks like the Clinton election campaign as well as recent global events.
Cyber Risk Management, is as simple as Richard Benham of the UK’s National Cyber Skills Centre and will, in accordance with promotional copy, offer “vital guidance on the way to evaluate threats and communicate a cyber-security strategy to assist in preventing the trillions of dollars which can be lost globally each and every year.”
Publishing Perspectives spoke to Helen Kogan about how precisely the business has was able to remain independent, its current rights activity, and how the concept of Best Business Books publishing has been evolving.
‘Discoverable In the World’
Publishing Perspectives: As Kogan Page enters its sixth decade, bed not the culprit business?
Helen Kogan: We’re developing 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 along with the Chartered Institute of Banking either way 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 an incredibly exciting breakthrough year following 4 years of refocus and continuing development of our value proposition.
PP: It is possible to particular focus for your rights activity?
HK: The expansion and further expansion of Beijing Book Fair continues to be particularly good for us, along with the sale of Chinese rights is our best territory.
However, we’ve got our titles translated into 50 different languages now and, interestingly, this isn’t just restricted to our popular general business titles. We’ve had success with some individuals more specialist titles too, in the area of logistics and hr.
We’ve forever been internationally-focused and currently sell our titles into 90 countries with key territories being United states, Europe, Southeast Asia, the very center East, Australia, India, and China.
We’ve offices in the united states and India as well as a wide network of agents globally. We’re fortunate to write in English-the international language of business-and that business and management can be a global subject. We’ve really taken advantage of global supply chains recently and, with the continuing development of digital bibliographic and marketing feeds, now have the fantastic capacity to make our titles discoverable all over the world.
‘A Very Crowded Marketplace’
PP: What are the main issues facing business and professional publishers?
HK: An important problem is that we’re now flanked by content producers.
It’s merely traditional publishers that disseminate business content, and it’s an incredibly crowded marketplace. Coaches, member organizations, business schools and management consultancies some of the intense non-traditional competition we have to think of. However, we’ve spent the past 3 years defining our value proposition and points of difference and think we continue to have a persuasive and competitive business with significant chance for further growth.
PP: The amount of a threat is open access? The ‘knowledge must be free’ camp can be quite persuasive. Will it create a breeding ground in which students are more reluctant to spend on content?
HK: I think it’s difficult to persuade students to cover content when they’ve been employed to ‘free’. We actually need the educational institutes to compliment us within this and to make case that at the conclusion of the fishing line is definitely an author who may have come up with book and really should be compensated accordingly.
Up to “free” can be a challenge Furthermore, i believe that the threat to non-linear narrative, through other media formats, is problematic. We’re looking at the way you will offer an infinitely more three-dimensional and interactive experience in the near future to compete with changing consumer reading habits.
PP: How has Kogan Page was able to stay independent?
HK: Bloody-mindedness, resilience, opportunism-all those ideas plus more.
PP: How many employees have you got and what’s your turnover?
HK: We’ve 35 staff and growing. Our turnover is ?4.5 million (US$5.6 000 0000) but also in the subsequent financial year this may grow to around ?5.5 million (US$7.2 million) through organic growth along with the addition of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development’s list. We’d to adopt popular on our top line over the last several years even as refocused a part of our activity on specialist areas however, this year we’re seeing the fruits of these work and expect to have 12-percent growth.
Benefitting From your Weak Pound
PP: What effect you think Brexit could have?
HK: It’s difficult to say at this point. We must hope that individuals won’t experience tariffs as this will clearly have some impact. Costs of materials can also be an issue and we’ll must watch this. We hold English-language world and digital rights to the majority of our list so this should mitigate the need to compete with US editions in Europe (an expanding concern amongst other publishers).
I hope that sanity will prevail along with the threat hanging over our European colleagues’ directly to remain in the united states will be managed swiftly as opposed to utilizing it being a bargaining chip.
For the plus side, we’ve certainly taken advantage of the weakness of the pound from the dollar.
PP: Where would you sell the majority of your books?
HK: 70 % individuals sales still have the traditional supply chain-bookshops, online stores, wholesalers, etc. However, our Web site sales are increasing and we have a very 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 is the reason for 25 percent of revenue with all the balance of this 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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