A publishing house or publishing house is an organization that points out books, pictures, magazines, newspapers, electronic articles and other copyrighted articles. Such as People's Publishing House, China Agricultural Publishing House and China Forestry Publishing House.
Although the definitions given by scholars in different countries are slightly different in words, the descriptions of the essential characteristics of publishing activities are very close. Scholars all over the world believe that the connotation of publishing activities includes the following contents:
1. Publishing is the process of converting existing works into publications.
2. Original works must go through a lot of copying process to form a certain carrier form and become publications.
3. Providing these publications to the public in a certain way is also an indispensable part of publishing activities.
Press type, scope of work and organization type. In China, there are central publishing houses and local publishing houses according to their affiliation. According to the business scope, there are comprehensive publishing houses and professional publishing houses. There are many kinds of books published by comprehensive publishing houses, while professional publishing houses are only responsible for editing and publishing books of certain majors and categories.
According to the form of publications, there are book publishing houses and audio-visual publishing houses. Historically and broadly speaking, the scope of work of publishing houses includes editing, printing and distribution.
In China, only a few publishing houses have their own printing plants. Judging from the current situation, the publishing house is only responsible for editing and publishing, and the specific contents include: formulating topics, determining authors, soliciting contributions, reviewing manuscripts, editing and processing, finalizing (including illustrations, layout and cover design), proofreading and printing, etc. The president of the publishing house is responsible for the overall work, and the editor-in-chief is responsible for the editing work.
Large publishing houses also have social affairs committees and editorial committees. The editorial board is responsible for formulating the long-term book publishing plan and annual book publishing plan of the whole society, and determining the editing plan of series, collections and key books. The specific editing work is the responsibility of each editing room, group and editor-in-chief established according to the professional division of labor.
Manuscripts are generally subject to a three-review system: the first review by the editor, the second review by the editor, and the final review by the editor. The publishing department is responsible for binding design and proofreading. Management is the responsibility of the management department.
Editors of publishing houses are divided into four categories according to their ideological level and professional ability: assistant editors, editors, deputy editors and editors. In foreign publishing houses, editors can be divided into contribution editors and text editors, and the level of contribution editors is relatively high.