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A modern book publishing company (or publisher) is usually involved in buying or commissioning content, editing it, and preparing it for printing. It usually also controls the advertising and other marketing tasks. However, it is usually not directly involved in retail sale of the product.

It is usual for publishing companies to contract-out various aspects of the process. Book publishers rarely own printing presses and binderies, although newspaper and magazine companies still often do. Book editing, proof-reading and layout might be done by freelancers, and the finished product sold to a distributor. If the entire process up to the stage of printing is handled by an outside company or individuals, then sold to the publishing company, it is known as book packaging .

Technically, radio and TV also publish information, but this is more usually called broadcasting. Internet publishing is a reversion to the original meaning of the word, as the information so published is often not produced by a business and is often not a commercial product.

In the jargon of the publishing trade scientific, technical and medical publishing is referred to as " STM publishing ".

See also:

• Possible crisis in Western publishing
• desktop publishing
• self-publishing
• mass mediaFor other uses, of the word Media see media (disambiguation). The media is the whole body of communications that reach large numbers of the public via radio, television, movies, magazines, newspapers and the World Wide Web. The term was coined in the 1920
• academic publishingAcademic publishing describes a system of publishing that is necessary in order for academic scholars to review work and make it available for a wider audience. The "system," which is probably disorganized enough not to merit the title, varies widely by f
• publisher
• word processingWord processing in its now-usual meaning, is the use of a word processor to create documents using computers. Word processing can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in conjunction with specialised keyboards. In this sense of the t
• writingWriting is the process of inscribing characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other larger language constructs. The instrument or instruments used for recording, and the medium on which the recording is done can be almost infinite,
• Open-access publishing
• proofreadingProofreading is reading a proof copy of text for the purpose of detecting errors. A proof copy is traditionally a version of a manuscript that has been typeset after copy editing has been performed. The line between copy editing and proofreading is narrow
• copy editingCopy editing is the process of an editor making formatting changes and other improvements to text. Copy in this case a noun, refers to matter (such as handwritten or typewritten pages) to be set (as in typesetting) for printing. The job is called sub-edit
• editor
• electronic publishing
• house style