ABSTRACT
Books can also be thought of as the point of convergence of sets of processes and relationships that are known as book publishing. Like any other segment of commodity production, publishing has its own means of producing its product, books, as well as its own patterns of interaction between the people making books and the larger society in which publishing takes place. Publishing has always been both a cultural activity and a business. This image must be expanded to include the fact that editors in this traditional sense are being steadily replaced by professional managers having technological, business, or legal backgrounds. The technologies have resulted in almost totally computer- integrated commercial newspaper publishing and have paved the way for electronic book publishing as well. Such developments, coupled with the immense financial resources of parent corporations, are making the automation of almost every aspect of book publishing a reality. Computers have transformed the work of editing as well.
