Online publishing or electronic publishing means publishing e-books and electronic articles as well as development of digital libraries by way of the Internet. Online publishing is fast becoming a popular mode of disseminating all kinds of publications. Most of the information is encapsulated as e-books, which are electronic or digital versions of printed books. The term e-book is an individual work in a digital format or a hardware device used to read books in a digital format.

Online book publishers commonly bundle information as e-books for distribution among target users. Most of the e-books contain metadata like printed books and includes details about author, title, publisher and copyright date. Online books can also be published in a variety of formats, keeping target readers in view and the type of work to be digitalized. Some of the commonly used formats are image, used mainly for distributing comic books, art books or other visual works; rich text; hyper text markup language or HTML, used mostly in web pages; PostScript or .ps is a page description language used primarily in the electronic and desktop publishing industry for enhancing the quality of a printed page from the actual output of bitmap file.

Book publishing is the way in which a writer or writers can get their work out to the public by way of mass printing and distribution. If you are an author who is about ready to attempt to publish your work, there are several types of publishing companies that you can submit your manuscript to.

There are commercial publishing companies who will cover all costs that are involved in publishing. They, of course, expect a huge return on their investment, and are very particular about what they will accept. They reject thousands of proposals every day. Assuming they accept your manuscript, they have editorial control over your work and will make any changes they deem necessary.