ABSTRACT
Book publishing serves the million-copy fiction writer and the specialist author with sales of under 300 copies. Publishers commission authors, confer the authority of their brand on authors’ works, project manage the publishing process, finance the production and marketing, and sell the works in multiple forms and ways wherever possible. The contract between the author and publisher not only conveys the right to the publisher to sell the work as a book, in whole or in part, but also other rights which enable the publisher to exploit and sell the work in many different ways. There is an alternative: supply-side publishing. The publishing industry divides into various market sectors within which the publishers specialize. Non-consumer publishing embraces other significant sectors based around readers’ places of study and work. In the decade between 2001 and 2010, a process of consolidation and restructuring, coinciding with the move from print to digital, had already reframed the segment of Science, Technical and Medical publishing.
