Typography and Publishing: Differences

Publishing House - publishes. Namely: carries out prepress preparation, prints, and accompanies the book in the process of sale, providing advertising support for the publication. That is, he leads the book from the moment the author appears on the threshold of the publishing house to the moment the last copy of the print run is sold.

The printing house only prints.

That is, in the classic definition of these two terms, a book printing house is a part (or partner) of a publishing house.

Background

The publishing house works with the author and the reader. The publisher operates with the entire budget of the book, deciding how much the author will receive as his fee, and how much he is willing to pay for printing. The lion's share of the profit goes to the publishing house, despite the fact that all technical aspects lie with the author and the printing house. The author creates the work, and the printing house prints it.

This is how a publisher sees a printer. And the natural desire of printing houses was to get out of the shadow of publishing houses and start working directly with authors and bookstores. To become publishing houses ourselves, while having our own production base.

Typography publish a book

The classic scheme of the printing house is to receive the original layout of the future publication from the customer, give it to the printer and immediately give the finished print run to the client.

The first and most logical step of the printers was to include prepress processing in the list of their services. To do this, it was enough just to hire a publisher, proofreader and layout designer, and now the printing house can not only print, but also prepare the book for printing.

The next step is more complicated. Build relationships with book distributors.

Large publishing houses, monopolistic giants, have long and productively worked with similar giants that dominate the book trade. You can't get in there. But there are still regional bookselling chains, single stores, and Internet sites, because more and more books (and not only books) are now sold on the world wide web.

Many ambitious printing houses have long done this, and now an author who wants to publish at his own expense can count on not only printing, but also a full range of services, from proofreading his manuscript to organizing meetings with readers.

Printing and publishing of books

The distinction between a printing house and a publishing house will become more and more blurred. Of course, there were and still are giant publishing houses that dictate their will to both authors and printing houses, but as applied to the segment of publishing books at the expense of the author, more and more printing houses will take on tasks that were previously uncharacteristic of them.

What does this mean for an author who has decided to invest in the publication of his book, and who should he prefer? A regular printing house is your choice if you are limited in funds, but at the same time you are able to do most of the prepress operations yourself (proofreading, editing, layout), and you already know exactly where, how and through what channels you will sell your book. It is worth contacting a publishing house if you want (and can afford) to have all this done for you. Prepared, printed and handed over for distribution. Or at least put it on the virtual shelves of an online store.

Of course, by contacting a large publishing house that works with a large number of book distributors, you will be able to see your book on the shelf of almost every store. But the cost of publishing a book can significantly exceed the projected profit from the sale, and not every publisher will take such a risk.