In ukiyo-e production, hanmoto is the Japanese term for the publisher or publishing house.
The hanmoto organized and financed the production of prints. A publisher selected subjects, commissioned artists, hired block carvers and printers, arranged materials, and marketed the finished sheets. This made the publisher the central coordinating figure in the collaborative ukiyo-e system.
The artist designed the image, the block carver transferred the design and cut the blocks, and the printer produced impressions from the carved blocks. The publisher managed the commercial process connecting these specialists with the buying public.
Terms for the other roles are easy to confuse. E-shi means an artist or designer, hori-shi means a woodblock carver, and suri-shi means a printer. Ukiyo-e prints were therefore usually collaborative commercial products rather than objects made by one person alone.