Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software, and other content available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, comic books, newspapers, and magazines. With the advent of digital information systems, the scope has expanded to include digital publishing such as e-books, digital magazines, websites, social media, music, and video game publishing.
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the following decades, a series of acquisitions made it into one of the largest publishers in the United States. In 2013, it was merged with Penguin Group to form Penguin Random House, which is owned by the Germany-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Penguin Random House uses its brand for Random House Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, as well as several imprints.
BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetised BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcast abroad with the aim of supplementing the income received by the BBC through the licence fee.
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
Macmillan Publishers is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the "Big Five" English language publishers. Founded in London in 1843 by Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, the firm would soon establish itself as a leading publisher in Britain. It published two of the best-known works of Victorian-era children's literature, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894).
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. It transports comic books and graphic novels, as well as other popular culture products such as toys, games, and apparel, from comic book publishers or suppliers to retailers.
Drawn & Quarterly (D+Q) is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic content, as well as the quality of printing and design. The name of the company is a pun on "drawing", "quarterly", and the practice of hanging, drawing and quartering. Initially it specialized in underground and alternative comics, but has since expanded into classic reprints and translations of foreign works. Drawn & Quarterly was the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s.
Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It was founded in 1991 and acquired Weidenfeld & Nicolson the following year. The group has published numerous bestselling books by notable authors including Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Nemir Kirdar, and Quentin Tarantino.
Ingram Content Group is an American service provider to the book publishing industry, based in La Vergne, Tennessee. It is a subsidiary of Ingram Industries.
Independent Publishers Group (IPG) is a worldwide distributor for independent general, academic, and professional publishers, founded in 1971 to exclusively market titles from independent client publishers to the international book trade. As per other book wholesalers and distributors, IPG combines its client publishers’ books into a single list, comparable to the larger publishing houses. IPG’s distribution services to publishers include warehousing, bill collecting, and sales to the book trade. IPG currently represents about 1,000 publishers. They are based in Chicago, Illinois. IPG distributes publishers based in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Israel, and others.
Eksmo Publishing House was founded in 1991. At first the company worked in the field of wholesale trade in books, since 1993 it started independent publishing activities.
Chinese publishing and printing industry have a long history. The first printed book sold commercially was sold in the markets of Tang dynasty China in 762, while printed paper receipts used for business transactions and tax payments can be dated to 782. The Chinese publishing industry continues to grow in modern times. In 2004, China published 25.77 billion copies of national-level and provincial-level newspapers, 2.69 billion magazines, and 6.44 billion books.
Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc., or FPCI, was an American science fiction and fantasy small press specialty publishing company established in 1946. It was the fourth small press company founded by William L. Crawford.
Lerner Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota since its founding in 1959, is one of the largest independently owned children's book publishers in the United States. With more than 5,000 titles in print, Lerner Publishing Group offers nonfiction and fiction books for grades K-12.
New Harbinger Publications, Inc. is an employee-owned, Oakland-based American publisher of self-help books.
Companhia das Letras is the largest publishing house in São Paulo, Brazil. It was founded in 1986 by Luiz Schwarcz and his wife, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz.
Nobrow Press is a British comics publishing company based in London, England. Nobrow is known for its bi-annual eponymous anthology, for publishing the works of Blexbolex, Luke Pearson, Jon McNaught and Jesse Moynihan, and for exposing the English-speaking world to works by European artists. The publisher is seen as a champion of DIY culture.
Penguin Random House LLC is a British-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was originally founded in 1935 and Random House was founded in 1927. It has more than 300 publishing imprints. Along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers.
