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.
Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business process in which book copies are not printed until the company receives an order, allowing prints in single or small quantities. While other industries established the build-to-order business model, POD could only develop after the beginning of digital printing because it was not economical to print single copies using traditional printing technologies such as letterpress and offset printing.
A vanity press or vanity publisher, sometimes also subsidy publisher, is a publishing house where the author pays to have the book published. It is not to be confused with hybrid publishing, where the publisher and author collaborate and share costs and risks, or with assisted self-publishing, where the author pays publishing services to assist with self-publishing their own book, and retains all rights.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley, is an American multinational publishing company that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company was founded in 1807 and 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.
Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Milan Kundera and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Intuit Inc. is an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, the small business accounting program QuickBooks, the credit monitoring and personal accounting service Credit Karma, and email marketing platform Mailchimp. As of 2019, more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States.
AuthorHouse, formerly known as 1stBooks, is a self-publishing company based in the United States. AuthorHouse uses print-on-demand business model and technology.
An author mill is a publisher that relies on producing large numbers of small-run books by different authors, as opposed to a smaller number of works published in larger numbers. The term was coined by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, as a parallel formation from diploma mill, an unaccredited college or university that offers degrees without regard to academic achievement, and puppy mill, a breeding operation that produces large numbers of puppies for sale with little regard for breed purity, puppy placement, health, or socialization.
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".
Shutterfly, LLC. is an American photography, photography products, and image sharing company, headquartered in San Jose, California. The company is mainly known for custom photo printing services, including books featuring user-provided images, framed pictures, and other objects with custom image prints, including blankets or mobile phone cases. The company has a variety of sub-brands including the main Shutterfly photo gift business, TinyPrints, SnapFish, Spoonflower, Shutterfly Business Solutions, and Lifetouch.
R.R. Donnelley is an American integrated communications company that provides marketing and business communications, commercial printing, and related services. Its corporate headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. In 2007, R.R. Donnelley was the world's largest commercial printer. In 2021, it was referred to as North America's largest.
Xlibris is a self-publishing and on-demand printing services provider, founded in 1997 and based in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. In 2000, The New York Times stated it to be the foremost on-demand publisher. The current president is Bill Elliot.
Blurb is an American self-publishing platform that allows users to create, self-publish, promote, share, and sell their own print and ebooks. It also offers software for laying out books.
Lightning Source is a printer and distributor of print-on-demand books. The company is a business unit of Ingram Content Group. Originally incorporated in 1996 as Lightning Print Inc., the company is headquartered in La Vergne, Tennessee, United States. Its UK operations are based in Milton Keynes. They also have operations in Maurepas, France and Melbourne, Australia.
iUniverse, founded in October 1999, is an American self-publishing company based in Bloomington, Indiana. It has been owned by Author Solutions since 2008.
Author Solutions is the parent company of a number of vanity presses, including AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, Xlibris, Palibrio, and Booktango. The company is headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, and has been owned by Najafi Companies since 2015.
Friesens Corporation is Canada's largest printer of hardcover books. They are employee-owned, specializing in hardcover books and yearbooks, and located in Altona, Manitoba, Canada. Friesens also operates a self-publishing subsidiary named FriesenPress, launched in 2009.
PNI Digital Media, Inc. is a company that operates an enterprise-class e-commerce platform which allows retailers to provide print-on-demand personalized products and services to their customers. Retailers who license the PNI platform use PNI's software to offer photo prints, photo gift merchandise, small business marketing products, document printing services and other print-on-demand merchandise.
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using print on demand technology. It may also apply to albums, pamphlets, brochures, games, video content, artwork, and zines. Web fiction is also a major medium for self-publishing.
