Publishers occupy a strange role in the creative industries.
They sit uneasily between the artist and the market, trying to make the often uncommercial as saleable as possible. From the publishers' perspective, this is an onerous, poorly paid and little recognised job. For the artist, the publisher often represents the dark forces of commercialism. Whatever one's viewpoint, the publisher has been the major conduit of artistic material to the outside world. They have taken responsibility for reproduction, dissemination, promotion and marketing.