Learn about the industry

There are many subsets of publishing that focus on specific industries, but the core sectors of book publishing are:

Academic Publishing

Academic publishers produce and distribute works of academic research and scholarship through non-fiction books, journals, textbooks, and online resources. Academic publishers pioneered digital publishing. There are some exciting and challenging developments in this sector as many publishers are changing their model to publish Open Access (OA) content.

You can find examples of academic publishers here.

Consumer or Trade Publishing

Trade publishers produce books for a general audience. This includes, but is not limited to, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, history, memoirs, cookbooks and self-help books. Books that appear in the bestseller lists, and that you can buy in supermarkets and bookshops, will be published by consumer publishers.

You can find examples of consumer publishers here.

Educational Publishing

Educational publishers produce materials for educational markets such as primary and secondary schools; colleges and universities; and training programmes. This may include textbooks; indexes and abstracts; study guides; and digital resources and programmes. Working with educational material means you are constantly developing to new teaching models and new ways of learning – you are investing in the sharing of information.

You can find examples of education publishers here.

Roles in publishing vary depending on the area of book publishing. Find out more about the different roles in publishing here.