Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newspapers, and magazines. With the advent of digital information systems, the scope has expanded to include electronic publishing such as ebooks, academic journals, micropublishing, websites, blogs, video game publishing, and the like.
Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was a Racine, Wisconsin, firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products. The company had editorial offices in New York City and Los Angeles, California. Western Publishing became Golden Books Family Entertainment in 1996. As of 2013, Little Golden Books remains as an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Bertelsmann is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, and is also active in the service sector and education.
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores in all 50 U.S. states.
A vanity press or vanity publisher, sometimes also subsidy publisher, is a publishing house which authors pay to have their books published. Where mainstream publishers aim to sell enough copies of a book to cover their own costs, and typically reject a majority of the books submitted to them, a vanity press will usually publish any book for which an author is willing to pay their fees. Professionals working in the publishing industry make a clear distinction between vanity publishing and self-publishing, which has a long and distinguished history.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley, is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in print and electronically, as well as online products and services, training materials, and educational materials for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students.
Spin was an American music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione, Jr. Now owned by Next Management Partners, the magazine is an online publication since it stopped issuing a print edition in 2012. Spin releases accolades and year-end lists in the categories of Artists of the Year, Single of the Year, and Album of the Year.
Macmillan Publishers Ltd 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, since 1999 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others.
Kappa Publishing Group, Inc. is a Blue Bell, Pennsylvania-based publishing company concentrating on adult puzzle books and magazines as well as children's magazines and maps. It is a private company founded in 1955 with $11.5 million in annual sales.
Harcourt was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida, and was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1982, it was based in New York City.
Thomas Nelson is a publishing firm that began in West Bow, Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1798 as the namesake of its founder. It is a subsidiary of HarperCollins, the publishing unit of News Corp. It describes itself as a "world leading publisher and provider of Christian content".
Wise Music Group is a global music publisher, with headquarters in Berners Street, London. In February 2020, Wise Music Group changed its name from The Music Sales Group.
RCS MediaGroup S.p.A., based in Milan and listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international multimedia publishing group that operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV. It is also one of the leading operators in the advertisement sales & distribution markets.
Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education, K-12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.
Macmillan Inc. is a now mostly defunct American book publishing company. Originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers, the two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original American division of Macmillan present in McGraw-Hill Education's Macmillan/McGraw-Hill textbooks, Gale's Macmillan Reference USA division, and some trade imprints of Simon & Schuster that were transferred when both companies were owned by Paramount Communications. The German publisher Holtzbrinck, which bought the British Macmillan in 1999, purchased US rights to the Macmillan name in 2001 and rebranded its American division with it in 2007.
An ebook, also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as "an electronic version of a printed book", some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
McGraw Hill is an American learning company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that provides customized educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also provides reference and trade publications for the medical, business, and engineering professions. McGraw Hill operates in 28 countries, has more than 3,900 employees globally, and offers products and services to over 135 countries in 60+ languages. Formerly a division of The McGraw Hill Companies, McGraw Hill Education was divested and acquired by Apollo Global Management in March 2013 for $2.4 billion in cash. McGraw Hill was sold in 2021 to Platinum Equity for $4.5 billion. Based on the growing demand for classroom technology, McGraw Hill began offering digital products alongside traditional print products. This shift has accelerated with an increased focus on developing adaptive learning systems that enable classroom teaching to come closer to a one-to-one student-teacher interaction. These systems allow personalized learning that assesses each student's skill level and uses data to determine how each can progress through lessons most effectively. McGraw Hill now provides digital products and services to over 11 million users on over 1,500 adaptive products in higher education and digital formats for its major K-12 programs.
Crowell-Collier Publishing Company was an American publisher that owned the popular magazines Collier's, Woman's Home Companion and The American Magazine. Crowell's subsidiary, P.F. Collier and Son, published Collier's Encyclopedia, the Harvard Classics, and general interest books.
Rizzoli Libri, formerly Rizzoli Libri S.p.A. and RCS Libri S.p.A. is an Italian book publisher and a division of Mondadori Libri, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. RCS Libri was a former subsidiary of RCS MediaGroup, but in 2015, most of the book publishing division was sold to Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, with some imprints of RCS Libri, were either sold by RCS MediaGroup or Arnoldo Mondadori Editore to third parties, as part of an antitrust deal. RCS MediaGroup retained the brand Rizzoli for non-book publishing, while Arnoldo Mondadori Editore has the exclusive rights to use the brand Rizzoli in book publishing.
