Publishing

The publishing process covering most magazine, journal, and book publishers includes: (Different stages are applicable to different types of publisher)[5]

There are four major types of publishers in book publishing:

• Commercial publishers are more rigid and selective as to which books they publish. If accepted, authors pay no costs to publish in exchange for selling rights to their work. They receive in-house editing, design, printing, marketing and distribution services and are paid royalties on sales.[21]
• Self-publishers: Authors use self-publishing houses to publish their books and retain full rights to their works. Self-publishing houses are more open than traditional ones, allowing emerging and established authors to publish their work. A number of modern or self-publishing houses offer enhanced services (e.g. editing, design) and authors may choose which one to use. Authors shoulder pre-publishing expenses and in return retain all the rights to their works, keep total control, and are paid royalties on sales.[22]
• Vanity presses portray themselves as traditional publishers but are, in fact, just a self-publishing service. Unlike genuine self-publishing services, the author is often obliged to use some or all of their additional services, and the press will often take rights to the work as part of their contract.[23]
• Hybrid publishers operate with a different revenue model than traditional publishing, while keeping the rest of the practices of publishing the same. There have been attempts to bridge this gap using hybrid models. No one model has been fully proven at this stage.[24]

In 2013, Penguin (owned by Pearson) and Random House (owned by Bertelsmann) merged, narrowing the industry to a handful of big publishers as it adapted to digital media.[25] The merger created the largest consumer book publisher globally, with a global market share of more than 25 percent.[26] Approximately 60%[27] of English-language books are produced through the "Big Five" publishing houses: Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan. In November 2020, ViacomCBS agreed to sell Simon & Schuster, the third largest book publisher in the United States, to Penguin Random House in a deal that if it had gone through, would have made the largest publishing company in the world.[25] On November 2, 2021, the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit (U.S. v. Bertelsmann SE & CO. KGaA, et al.) to block the merger on antitrust grounds,[28] and on October 31, 2022, the D.C. District Court ruled in favour of the Department of Justice, filing a permanent injunction on the merger.[29]

Although newspaper and magazine companies still often own printing presses and binderies, book publishers rarely do. Similarly, the trade usually sells the finished products through a distributor who stores and distributes the publisher's wares for a percentage fee or sells on a sale or return basis.

The advent of the Internet has provided a way of book distribution without needing physical printing, delivery, or storage. The process of preparing a book for ebook publication is the same as print publication, with only minor variations in the process to account for the different mediums of publishing; Ebook publication also allows some costs like the discount given to retailers (normally around 45%)[30] to be eliminated.

Some of the major publishers have entire divisions devoted to a single franchise, e.g., Ballantine Del Rey Lucasbooks has the exclusive rights to Star Wars in the United States; Random House UK (Bertelsmann)/Century LucasBooks holds the same rights in the United Kingdom. The game industry self-publishes through BL Publishing/Black Library (Warhammer) and Wizards of the Coast (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc.). The BBC has its own publishing division that does very well with long-running series such as Doctor Who. These multimedia works are cross-marketed aggressively and sales frequently outperform the average stand-alone published work, making them a focus of corporate interest.[31]

Accessible publishing uses the digitization of books to mark up books into XML and then produces multiple formats from this to sell to customers, often targeting those with difficulty reading. Formats include a variety of larger print sizes, specialized print formats for dyslexia,[32] eye tracking problems and macular degeneration, as well as Braille, DAISY, audiobooks, and ebooks.[33]

Green publishing means adapting the publishing process to minimize environmental impact. One example of this is the concept of on-demand printing, using digital or print-on-demand technology. This cuts down the need to ship books since they are manufactured close to the customer on a just-in-time basis.[34]

A further development is the growth of online publishing where no physical books are produced. The ebook is created by the author and uploaded to a website from which anyone can download and read.

An increasing number of authors are using niche marketing online to sell more books by engaging with their readers online.[35]

Refer to the ISO divisions of ICS 01.140.40 and 35.240.30 for further information.[36][37]

Publication is the distribution of copies or content to the public.[38][39] The Berne Convention requires that this can only be done with the consent of the copyright holder, which is initially always the author.[38] In the Universal Copyright Convention, "publication" is defined in article VI as "the reproduction in tangible form and the general distribution to the public of copies of a work from which it can be read or otherwise visually perceived."[39]

Privishing (private publishing, but not to be confused with self-publishing) is a modern term for publishing a book but printing so few copies or with such lack of marketing, advertising, or sales support that it effectively does not reach the public.[40] The book, while nominally published, is almost impossible to obtain through normal channels such as bookshops, often cannot be ordered specially, and has a notable lack of support from its publisher, including refusal to reprint the title. A book that is privished may be referred to as "killed". Depending on the motivation, privishing may constitute breach of contract, censorship,[41] or good business practice (e.g., not printing more books than the publisher believes will sell in a reasonable length of time).

Printer working an early Gutenberg letterpress from the 15th century (1877 engraving).

Publishing became possible with the invention of writing, and became more practical upon the introduction of printing. Prior to printing, distributed works were copied manually, by scribes. Due to printing, publishing progressed hand-in-hand with the development of books.

The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng made movable type of earthenware c. 1045, but there are no known surviving examples of his work. The Korean civil servant Choe Yun-ui, who lived during the Goryeo Dynasty, invented the first metal moveable type in 1234–1250 AD.[42]

Around 1450, in what is commonly regarded as an independent invention, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. This invention gradually made books less expensive to produce and more widely available.

Early printed books, single sheets, and images that were created before 1501 in Europe are known as incunables or incunabula. "A man born in 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople, could look back from his fiftieth year on a lifetime in which about eight million books had been printed, more perhaps than all the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in A.D. 330."[43]

Eventually, printing enabled other forms of publishing besides books. The history of modern newspaper publishing started in Germany in 1609, with publishing of magazines following in 1663.

Missionaries brought printing presses to sub-Saharan Africa in the mid-18th century.[44]

Historically, publishing has been handled by publishers, although some authors self-published.[45] The establishment of the World Wide Web in 1989 soon propelled the website into a dominant medium of publishing. Wikis and Blogs soon developed, followed by online books, online newspapers, and online magazines, while also facilitating the technological convergence of commercial and self-published content, as well as the convergence of publishing and producing into online production through the development of multimedia content.

A U.S.-based study in 2016 that surveyed 34 publishers found that the publishing industry in the US in general is overwhelmingly represented by straight, able-bodied, white females.[46] Salon described the situation as "lack of diversity behind the scenes in book world".[47] A survey in 2020 by the same group found there has been no statistical significant change in the lack of diversity since the 2016 survey four years earlier.[48] Lack of diversity in the American publishing industry has been an issue for years. Within the industry, there was the least amount of diversity in higher-level editorial positions.[49]

• International Publishers' organisation
• Printing and publishing – Law Insider