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The challenge of independence

16.07.07

The days of the 30 per cent publisher's profit margin are now a distant memory says Philip Kogan during an interview in the Guardian. Nevertheless Kogan Page still survives after what its founder describes as "forty years of obduracy!"

"You could argue that as independents we have to be better than the big companies to survive," Kogan also says. The range of skills even the smallest publisher has to embrace - business, design, print buying, editing, selling and marketing, distribution, not to mention web-mastery - stretches far beyond what any manager in a large conglomerate firm ('not houses any more') would have to envisage.

That's a challenge, but also part of the fun of being an independent, says the Guardian. "The fundamentals of publishing don't change. It's about acquiring good intellectual property and getting it to market," Kogan notes. Proof of the primacy of shrewd commissioning, and something he is most proud of, is a core of titles still going strong 30 or 40 years down the line.



Guardian

Philip Kogan Kogan Page independence

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