Publishers--Book

Publishing is an industry that is involved in the dissemination of information to the general public. Specifically, book publishers refers to companies that are involved in the distribution of printed work by authors, providing them with binding, design, layout and printing facilities.

As the world has progressed into the 21st century, publishers have entered a new age. The advent of tablets and ebooks has meant that publishing has increasingly become a digital endeavour as well as a physically printed one.

While many publishers will provide services such as binding, typesetting, and printing of the work, there is an increased need for the services that are flexible to both printed and electronic versions of books, such as copyediting, graphic design and layout.

However, there is still a market for printed materials, and many publishing companies will provide a full range of options for publishing material. This could include hardback covers, paperback covers, textbook-style printing, atlases, full colour glossy books (such as for photography), black and white manuals, children’s picture books and more.

Often book publishers companies are more likely to accept submissions coming from a literary agent. When an author sends directly to a publisher without going through an agent, it is known as an unsolicited submission. This generally comes from unpublished authors and many publishers will not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Those that do accept them will place the submission into the slush pile. This is then skimmed, usually by interns or “readers” in the company, for manuscripts of sufficient quality for consideration by the editor.

It used to be more difficult, but with the advent of ebooks, it has become quite easy to self-publish, should an author feel the need to. Releasing an ebook can be as simple as a few clicks, and is an alternative to going through a publishing company. However, it can be difficult to market and sell in such a saturated market when an author self-publishes.