Industry terms
Do you find yourself confused when writers around you are talking about partials, subrights, or deckle edges? Not anymore!
acquisitions editor/acquisitions board: an editor or group of people at a publishing house responsible for acquiring new titles
advance: money paid to an author prior to publication, often in chunks, offered upon signing the contract, the author’s finished delivery of the “accepted” manuscript, and on publication day. Publishers handle this differently depending on the amount of the advance (50/50, in thirds, etc.), so ask your agent to clarify. This is NOT free money. See “earn out.”
ARC: advance reading/review copy, a proof copy of a book produced by the publisher in advance of the publication date and distributed for marketing purposes and to collect reviews
AU: short for “author”
back-cover copy: the short summary of the book that sells the books to potential readers. May be located on the back cover, the inside flap on hardcovers or enhanced paperbacks, or in the front matter of an e-book.
back matter: additional information in the back of your book that may include a sign-up for your newsletter, a preview of an upcoming book or sequel, or sales pages for your other titles. Include back matter sparingly so you are not suspected of “book stuffing,” a technique used by scammers in Kindle Unlimited to “stuff” their books with nonsense pages to increase the page reads, and ultimately their payouts. Book stuffing is unethical and will get you banned from KDP for good.
backlist: books that have been in print for some time but continue to sell steadily
bleed (printing/graphics term): area that extends beyond the trim of a book or cover
blog tour: a book blogger who offers a service to “tour” your book to different bloggers in the book community to increase awareness of your upcoming release, new release, or sales promotions
blurb: a testimonial or line of praise from a book review, blogger, author, or other esteemed reader that is used for marketing materials
bookseller: a retail store that sells books; includes Indigo, Barnes & Noble, and independent bookstores (also referred to as “indie” bookstores, which is different from an “indie” publisher. Indie publishers include self-publishers as well as small publishers and presses independent of the Big Five, such as Sky Pony.)
category: an important piece of your metadata; the categories where your book is placed in the online retailer’s library so potential readers can buy your book, based on industry-standard BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) codes. For more: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170
consignment: when you make a contractual arrangement with a bookstore to offer your books for sale for a split of the cost. For example, my local Indigo Chapters sells my indie-published Eliza Gordon paperbacks for 45% of the cover price. Be sure to factor in the cost of printing and shipping your book before setting the consignment price with the retailer, or you could lose money on the deal.
copyright: the “right to copy”, or reproduce, intellectual property; original writing is copyrighted the instant it is created with no additional action needed
deckle edge: when the page edges of a book are untrimmed for a feathery effect; often used in hardcover fiction. This is not available via KDP Print or IngramSpark at this time.
discount: the percentage off the list price at which booksellers buy the book (results in the wholesale price); industry standard discount is 55%. When pricing your paperback, hardcover, and large print physical books via IngramSpark, you will be asked to provide a discount amount. Many booksellers, chain and independent stores included, will not buy books to bring into their stores unless the discount is offered.
distributor: a company that warehouses and ships books to bookstores, libraries, and retailers; the largest book distributors include Amazon, Ingram and Baker & Taylor
dust jacket or dust cover: the outer wrap on a hardcover book
echo: editing term used by an editor to alert the author when the same word occurs in proximity within the text
editor: someone who selects, prepares, corrects, organizes, condenses, and/or modifies a piece of writing; can work freelance or with a publishing company. An acquisitions editor is an editor who works in a publishing company and acquires new properties (i.e., your book!). For a discussion about the different types of editors, click here.
foreword: a short introduction at the beginning of a book, usually written by another author
full: when an agent asks to see your entire manuscript to evaluate if they are interested in moving forward with offering you representation
galley: a proof copy of a manuscript, can be bound or unbound (loose)
ISBN: International Standard Book Number, the barcode on the back of a book. An ISBN is a unique identifier for every book, including e-books, physical books, and audiobooks. Each of these properties must have their own ISBN. You will need a separate ISBN for your MOBI (Kindle) e-book, your ePUB ebook, your paperback book, your hardcover and/or large-print edition books, as well as you audiobook. Consumers can look up a book by the ISBN online or at their favorite bookseller.
keyword: words that accurately portray your book’s content and reflect the words customers will use when they search online; a crucial piece of your metadata. For more: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201298500
list price: the retail price on the book
literary agent: a person who represents a book author for negotiating sales, rights, and contracts; is paid by commission on author’s royalties, usually 10-20%, up to 25% for foreign or translation deals. Legitimate literary agents do not ask for money up front from you ever. Their job is to make YOU money.
mass market paperback: a small, inexpensive book binding format. These are the books you see at the checkout in grocery stores.
metadata: the words and phrases you use to describe your book, including title, author name, author bio, the book’s description, publication date, etc. For more: https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/the-basics-of-book-metadata-and-keywords. See also article here.
MS (or Ms): short for manuscript (MSs or Mss = manuscripts plural)
offset printing: a printing technique using an etched metal plate applied to a rubber surface, then pressed to paper; used for mass print runs and producing large quantities of books at one time
option clause: part of a publishing contract that gives the publisher the right to the first exclusive look at an author’s next book; also called “right of first refusal”
partial: when an agent asks for part of your manuscript, usually the first three chapters or fifty pages, to determine if they might be interested in seeing the whole thing and/or representing you
perfect bound: the binding of a paperback where the pages are glued directly to the spine
POD/print-on-demand: printing books one order at a time using a digital press; this is how KDP Print, IngramSpark, Blurb, or BookBaby print books. For more: https://blog.reedsy.com/print-on-demand-books/. POD services are also popular for merchandise, including sites like Printful, Printify, RedBubble, Society6, and others.
pp: shorthand for pages; for example, if a book is 302 pages, it would be written as “203 pp”
printer: produces (prints) the physical copies of the book
proof: a non-final typeset version of a manuscript that still contains typographical errors. You can order proofs via KDP, Ingram, and other POD printers to make sure your book is error-free before approving the book for sale on the sales platforms.
pub date: the book’s publication date, after which the book will be available for purchase by readers
publicist: someone who generates and manages publicity for a public figure (author), business, or work such as a book or film
publisher: a company or entity that owns the right to distribute and sell a book; includes prepress activities such as editing, proofreading, typesetting, and cover design. When you undertake publishing your book independently, you become the publisher.
query letter: a finely crafted and polished letter that describes you and your book to a potential agent in the hopes that they will offer you representation. For more, https://blog.reedsy.com/how-to-write-a-query-letter/
remaindered: physical books that are no longer selling well, and whose remaining unsold copies are liquidated by the publisher at greatly reduced prices. While the publisher may take a net loss on the sales of these books, they are able to recover at least some of their costs and clear out warehouse space. Remaindered books may be marked by the publisher, distributor, or bookseller, usually with a black felt-tip marker on the top or bottom of the pages, to prevent these books from being returned. Book outlet companies can buy remaindered books at a steep discount in lots, passing on the savings to the consumer. However, an author receives no compensation from sales at book outlets or second-hand bookstores.
returns: unsold books that are returned to the publisher by the bookseller for credit; usually destroyed
schmagent: an unscrupulous fake agent who will take advantage of you and/or your work, has no legitimate sales record or industry experience. For more, https://www.query101.blog/blog/agent-or-schmagent. Also, use Publishers Marketplace and/or QueryTracker for due diligence.
short discount: a less-than-standard wholesale discount (from 20% to 40%)
slush pile: unsolicited manuscripts sent to an editor or literary agent
stet: editing term for “let it stand.” This is used when you (or the editor) don’t agree with a change made to the text. The editor or author may place a row of dots in the text under the material that is to remain, cross out the mark or correction in the margin, and write “stet.” That is a signal to leave the text in question as it was originally.
style guide: a reference guide to maintain consistency across a publisher’s publications in relation to grammar, spelling, and punctuation rules, formatting, and handling of the text in general. (Examples: Chicago Manual of Style; in-house style guides developed by in-house editors with rules based on the publisher’s preference (which may and often do deviate from the industry standard Chicago rules); Associated Press, Canadian Press, etc.)
style sheet: similar to a style guide, only shorter and tailored to a writer’s specific project; often lists all characters, geographic locations, preferred and/or specialized spellings, verbal tics approved by the editor, dialect, dialogue preferences, etc.
subrights: short for subsidiary rights; the rights granted to a publisher to determine what format the publisher is entitled to produce (paperback, hardcover, large format) and WHERE (including which territories). Subrights also include rights for audiobooks, translation, book club editions, film/TV adaptations, video games, graphic novels, among others. Be very clear with your agent about exploiting as many of these individual rights as possible—more rights sales means more money. Think of every book like a pie; more than one slice in each!
synopsis: a brief summary that gives a reader an idea of what your book is about. It provides an overview of the storyline or main points and other defining factors of the work, which may include style, genre, characters, main conflict, plot, setting, resolution, and so on. May be short and definitive or more involved, depending on its intended use.
TK = “to come”; used when an author or editor needs to add something later as it’s easy to search for in a manuscript
trade paperback: a high-quality, softcover book
trim size: the size of the physical book. Popular trim sizes supported by KDP Print and IngramSpark (among others) are 5 x 8, 5.25 x 8, 5.5 x 8.5, and 6 x 9, among others. For more: https://help.vellum.pub/guides/mass-market/
WIP/work-in-progress: an incomplete manuscript or project
