publishing, Traditionally, the selection, preparation, and distribution of printed matter—including books, newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets. Contemporary publishing includes publishing works on the Internet. Publishing has evolved from small, ancient, and law- or religion-bound origins into a vast industry that disseminates every kind of information imaginable. In the modern sense of a copying industry supplying a lay readership, publishing began in Hellenistic Greece, in Rome, and in China. After paper reached the West from China in the 11th century, the central innovation in Western publishing was Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of movable type. In the 19th and 20th centuries, technological advances, the rise of literacy and leisure, and ever-increasing information needs contributed to an unprecedented expansion of publishing. Contemporary challenges in publishing include attempts at censorship, copyright laws and plagiarism, royalties for authors and commissions for literary agents, competitive marketing techniques, pressures from advertisers affecting editorial independence, acquisition of independent publishing concerns by conglomerates, and the loss of readers to other media such as television and the Internet.
