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Kogan's contrarian streak

21.05.07

Philip Kogan is interviewed in the Times. "Kogan has forgotten how many offers he has had for the business, although he hints at a recent significant sum from a well-known publishing conglomerate. Kogan Page this week celebrates its 40th anniversary, something of an achievement for an independent in a world now dominated by huge publishing monoliths."

Kogan tells the newspaper: "The act of publishing hasn’t really changed. The fundamentals are the same. The publisher acquires IP (intellectual property), makes it publishable and gets it to market.”  However, the past few years have not been easy for the tiddlers of the book world. “There are three or four hundred independent publishers. Many of them are small and daft. Many are top class.” But the rapid disappearance of the independent bookseller has shrunk the shelf space available for niche subjects.

So has anything at all improved over the past four decades, asks the Times? Kogan thinks for a while. “People around me seem to have got younger.”

The Times

Philip Kogan Kogan Page

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