Publishing houses are complex, dynamic organizations made up of specialized departments that collaborate to bring books to life. This page provides insights into the main departments within a publishing company and highlights the essential roles they play in the journey from manuscript to market.

Audio Department

Creative/ Arts & Design Department

Editorial Department

Finance and Accounting Department

Human Resources Department

Information Technology Department

Legal and Contracts Department

Managing Editorial Department

Marketing/ Promotion/ Advertising Department

Operations Department

Production Department

Publicity Department

Publisher Department

Sales Department

Subsidiary Rights & Permissions Department

Web Management Department

Audio Department

This department helps create audio-books. They cast readers for each book and produce the readings in-home or in a studio, working with the publisher and editor to ensure the best way to depict the story. Responsibilities include:

Creative/ Arts& Design Department

Graphic designers and studio managers work together to create a cover and interior design for each book. The art department works closely with the editor, marketing director and publisher of the book. Functions include:

Editorial Department

This department receives, arranges, manages, and edits book projects for publication while working with all the departments. Most publishing houses divide editorial departments by imprints (the specific name given to a line of particular books available from the publisher). Editors can use their imprints to manage specific projects. The daily functions of an editor include:

Finance and Accounting Department

Finance and accounting take care of all the finances within each department and help make the best financial publishing decisions. The department oversees the following:

Human Resources Department

This department works with all employees in each department to ensure their health and happiness through benefits, rewards and recognition, organizing company events, and the hiring of new employees. 

Information Technology Department

The IT department is very important to a publishing house. This department oversees the development and maintenance of application and data architecture as well as the architecture/design of all databases and repositories to fit the needs of the publishing company. The IT department is charged with

Legal and Contracts Department

This department uses negotiations and contracts with authors and packagers to guarantee the publication rights for each book. Legal and Contracts works with the publisher, executives, editorial, subsidiary rights, and design departments as well. The responsibilities of the legal and contracts department are the following:

Managing Editorial Department

This department is in charge of the books after purchase. The managing editorial department creates in-house procedures for regulation of the workflow from the manuscript to the published product. Working closely with the editorial and production departments, the managing editorial department ensures that the finished product meets expectations. Those in the managing editorial department have these responsibilities:

Marketing/ Promotion/ Advertising Department

The marketing department oversees developing, maintaining, and implementing marketing strategies and policies for each book by combining the skills of publicity, promotion, advertising, online, and sales. The functions of the marketing include:

The promotion department is the liaison between the marketing and publicity directors. They use this connection to create effective campaigns to encourage sales. This department is in charge of supervising the creation of all catalogs, point-of-purchase, and promotional/sales materials. The promotion department has the following tasks:

The advertising department purchases media space and develops ads paid for by the publishing company. This department works closely with marketing directors, editors, and publishers of titles to create an advertising plan to promote sales of titles. Each plan involves research and negotiation to provide better venues and cost-effective ways to advertise. The advertising department works with graphic designers, print/radio/commercial sales representatives, printing presses, and internal staff to aid the run of each ad. 

Operations Department

This department is responsible for securing raw materials for printing traditional books, maintaining relationships with vendors to make sure titles are high quality and finished on time, as well as predict inventory levels to learn when books need to be reprinted and the amount of books needed. 

Production Department

This department oversees the production and manufacturing of each manuscript. Production is the liaison between editorial, design, and outside vendors to make and distribute the final product. The responsibilities of this department include:

Publicity Department

Publicity is in charge of promoting each book and author in the media without direct payment to the media communications. This department facilitates the publication of each title through mass mailings or pre-published works for review, author tours, and book parties. The following responsibilities are given to the Publicity department:

Publisher Department

The publishing department supervises the entire cycle of a book from its purchases to the final product. Publishers make executive decisions for all manuscripts within assigned imprints while staying within budget. The publisher also supports book projects, strategies, and initiatives for the company or imprints. 

Sales Department

This department is in charge of managing policies and strategies utilized to sell books effectively by using all relationships and techniques. The department employees call on traditional bookstores, retail accounts, libraries, institutions, book clubs, online vendors, as well as additional special markets. The sales department is connected with the financial well-being of the company and regularly provides input upon the production of books to assure sales. Tasks include:

Subsidiary Rights & Permissions Department

The subsidiary rights department looks for other sources of revenue for a book, like serials, book clubs, as well as paperback, audio, and e-book rights. The foreign rights department is also in charge of generating profit by selling the rights to publish the company's titles in other languages and markets. Duties of this department include:

Web Management Department

This department is responsible for regulating, creating, and producing internet sites for a publishing house and developing relations with online marketing and promotional vendors. They must have knowledge of the current activities in the publishing house as well as communicate and launch these activities through current internet technologies. The web management department oversees the following responsibilities: