Universal Publishers is the parent publishing company of three non-fiction book imprints specializing in nonfiction, how-to, technical and academic titles (Universal-Publishers, BrownWalker Press & Dissertation.com).

It originally began in 1997 as "Dissertation.com," one of the first companies to use print on-demand and PDF (Portable Document Format) e-book technologies to publish academic theses and Ph.D. dissertations for sale online.

[1][2] The company was founded by Jeffrey R. Young, while he was in graduate school as a way to make academic dissertations widely available to other students and researchers at a reasonable price.

[3] The BrownWalker Press imprint was launched in 2001 to publish academic textbooks, scholarly monographs, and edited collections across a wide range of academic expertise.

The acquisition and administrative operations were relocated to Irvine, California in 2018 but still maintains a corporate presence in Boca Raton, Florida.