The reports of 18th CPC National Congress point out, that the cultural industry will become the pillar industry in national economy. As a traditional cultural industry, publishing has its own characteristics and development trends. This paper introduces the general situation of publishing industry, and analyzes its characteristics, profit model, function value and main risks. We suggest investors keep cautious on publishing industry's investment, to avoid investing in traditional newspaper, magazine, and the press relying on one single business area and without educational publishing business. We recommend paying attention to those local publishing groups that own the whole industry chain, have strong innovation ability on content production, have well established distribution link and feasible transformation strategy, and are located in the place where holds larger local population, higher education level and better economic development.