Thanks to digital initiatives plus a strong report on titles, the 50-year-old UK publisher is growing its business, despite increasing competition externally traditional publishing.
Even as hear from Kogan Page’s leadership today concerning the rights landscape on this independent house’s business and management specialty, we’ve got several titles the organization is presenting for rights sales. You’ll find those at the conclusion of this story.-Porter Anderson
Chinese Rights Sales Now Leading
China has become 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 company recently made industry headlines with all the timely buying of two cyber-attack titles, announced in the same week as the global ransomware attack. Both of these titles are scheduled for spring 2018:
Cyberwars: The Hacks that Shook the globe is by former Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur and definately will look at the dramatic inside stories of many of the world’s biggest cyber-attacks such as the Clinton election campaign in addition to recent global events.
Cyber Risk Management, is by Richard Benham in the UK’s National Cyber Skills Centre and definately will, as outlined by promotional copy, offer “vital guidance on how to evaluate threats and communicate a cyber-security tactic to assist in preventing the trillions of dollars which might be lost globally each and every year.”
Publishing Perspectives spoke to Helen Kogan about how exactly the organization has were able to remain independent, its current rights activity, and the way the concept of Cheap Business Books publishing is beginning to change.
‘Discoverable Anywhere in the World’
Publishing Perspectives: As Kogan Page enters its sixth decade, how is business?
Helen Kogan: We’re using 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 either way academic and professional development titles.
We’re about to launch a searchable digital platform for B2B customers and we’re also about to launch our first online courses. It’s been a very exciting breakthrough year following 4 years of refocus and development of our value proposition.
PP: What is the particular focus in your rights activity?
HK: The development and further development of Beijing Book Fair continues to be particularly great for us, and the sale of Chinese rights is now our best territory.
However, we’ve got our titles translated into 50 different languages now and, interestingly, this isn’t just limited to our popular general business titles. We’ve had success with a few of our more specialist titles too, in the area of logistics and human resources.
We’ve for ages been internationally-focused and currently sell our titles into 90 countries with key territories being America, Europe, Southeast Asia, the very center East, Australia, India, and China.
We have offices in america and India plus 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 in recent years and, with the development of digital bibliographic and marketing feeds, will have the extraordinary capability 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 significant concern is that we’re now surrounded 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 are a few of the intense non-traditional competition we should instead think about. However, we’ve spent the final 3 years defining our value proposition and points of difference and think we have a persuasive and competitive business with significant potential for further growth.
PP: The amount of a threat is open access? The ‘knowledge should be free’ camp can be extremely persuasive. Can it create an atmosphere by which students will be more not wanting to buy content?
HK: I think it’s difficult to persuade students to pay for content when they’ve been used to ‘free’. We really have to have the educational institutes to compliment us on this also to make the case that at the conclusion of the line is definitely an author who’s come up with book and will be compensated accordingly.
Just as much as “free” can be a challenge Furthermore, i believe the threat to non-linear narrative, through other media formats, is problematic. We’re investigating how you may offer a lot more three-dimensional and interactive expertise in the future to contend with changing consumer reading habits.
PP: How has Kogan Page were able to stay independent?
HK: Bloody-mindedness, resilience, opportunism-all those things and even more.
PP: The number of employees are there and what’s your turnover?
HK: We have 35 staff and growing. Our turnover is ?4.5 million (US$5.6 000 0000) in the subsequent financial year this will likely grow to in excess of ?5.5 million (US$7.2 million) through organic growth and the inclusion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development’s list. There were to adopt a winner on our top line within the last number of years once 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 From the Weak Pound
PP: What effect you think Brexit will have?
HK: It’s tough to say at this stage. We need to hope we won’t have to endure tariffs as this will clearly involve some impact. Costs of materials are often a worry and we’ll have to keep close track of this. We hold English-language world and digital rights on the majority of our list so this should mitigate being forced to contend with US editions in Europe (an expanding concern amongst other publishers).
Hopefully sanity will prevail and the threat hanging over our European colleagues’ to certainly remain in this country will be dealt with swiftly as an alternative to deploying it being a bargaining chip.
On the plus side, we’ve certainly taken advantage of the weakness in the pound contrary to the dollar.
PP: Where can you sell most of your books?
HK: 70 % of our sales still glance at the traditional supply chain-bookshops, online stores, wholesalers, and the like. However, our Site sales are increasing and we have a thriving B2B sales activity for member organizations, author networks, and corporates.
PP: What’s the split between digital and print within your business?
HK: Digital accounts for 25 percent of revenue with all the balance on this being delivered from digital licensing to academic library suppliers, aggregators, and company content suppliers. Our ebook business has stayed fairly stable at approximately 8 percent of overall revenue.
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