Publishing houses often focus on specific types of publications. For example, Award Publications primarily deals with children's books, while Anvil Press Poetry is concerned with poetry. Additional types include fiction, non-fiction, reference, crime, thriller, cooking, gardening, special interest, travel, fantasy and science fiction. Publishing companies with a primary interest in fantasy are highly unlikely to accept a proposal about a cookbook. The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook (see Resources) has a list of publishers by subject.
According to the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2008, the four largest publishing groups in the UK are Hachette Livre, Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins. These four companies represent more than 50 percent of the market share of UK publishing and are the parent companies of many smaller brands, such as Orion, Virago, Virgin Books and Conran. Independent publishing companies like Profile Books, Arcadia and Faber are typically smaller and are more likely to take a chance on unknown authors.
Publishing houses select manuscripts for publications and oversee the process of turning a manuscript into a book. They typically are responsible for marketing and selling each book that they publish. A representative from the publishing company will sell the book to major chain bookstores in the UK, such as Waterstones or WHSmiths, as well as smaller, independent bookstores. Marketing and publicity for a book begins anywhere from six to nine months before publication and is coordinated primarily by the company with some input from the author.
Many trade organizations bring together different publishers in an area. These associations work to regulate the industry, discussing issues, creating policies and acting as a networking resource. In the UK, these associations include the Publishers Association, Scottish Publishers Association and Irish Book Publishers Association. Membership is granted to companies that meet each organization's criteria and pay a membership fee (see Resources).
Some authors turn to vanity publishers or self-publishing, but these companies should be set apart from regular publishing houses, because they do business differently. A vanity publisher usually charges an author to publish his work. On the positive side, these companies rarely turn authors down, but they have no vested interest in selling a book once it is published because they don't stand to profit from the sales.