Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. With the advent of digital information systems, the scope has expanded to include electronic publishing such as ebooks, academic journals, micropublishing, websites, blogs, video game publishing, and the like.

Publishing may produce private, club, commons or public goods and may be conducted as a commercial, public, social or community activity. The commercial publishing industry ranges from large multinational conglomerates such as RELX, Pearson and Thomson Reuters to thousands of small independents.

It has various divisions such as: trade/retail publishing of fiction and non-fiction, educational publishing (k-12) and academic and scientific publishing. Publishing is also undertaken by governments, civil society and private companies for administrative or compliance requirements, business, research, advocacy or public interest objectives.