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Glossary of Terms
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AOI: Since 1973 the Association of Illustrators has been championing illustrators and the illustration industry with education, promotion and campaigning to achieve a thriving industry for us all.
ABA: The American Booksellers Association (www.Bookweb.org), the national trade association for independent booksellers. ABA provides education, resources, advocacy, and programming to support independent bookstores in the US.
ARC: An Advance Reader Copy is a free copy of a new book given by a publisher to booksellers before the book is printed for mass distribution. They are bookstore property. (see also "Galley")
Backlist: A publisher's list of older books that are still in print. This generally refers to book titles older than the current season.
Bestseller: A printed book, eBook, or audiobook that outsells other books in its category.
Binding: In the context of books, binding refers to the cover and materials that hold a book together. It includes the spine, cover boards, and any additional elements that keep the pages intact. (i.e. hardcover or paperback).
BISAC: The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) is a membership organization made up of a diverse slate of publishers, manufacturers, wholesalers & distributors, libraries, retailers and industry partners. What unifies them is the value they receive by joining and engaging with our committees, where work gets done that improves the industry. Our committees are where relationships get built and good ideas are surfaced, solving problems that affect two or more parts of the industry, with five core practice areas: metadata, rights, supply chain, subject codes (BISAC), and workflow.
Blurb: The copy on book covers or book dust jackets, promoting the book and the author or featuring testimonials from book reviewers or well-known people in the book's field. Also called flap copy or jacket copy.
Buying/Buyer: The bookstore's process of determining which books to stock/the individual who performs this task.
Cloth Bound (aka "Cloth"): A book bound with stiff boards covered with cloth. A type of hardcover.
Colophon: The logo of a publisher or imprint, usually found on the spine of a book.
Consignment (aka "Scan and Pay"): An agreement to pay a supplier of goods after the goods are sold. We have a consignment policy for local, self-published authors.
Comps: Books that are similar to a book in question, in genre, tone, subject matter, and/or potential appeal.
Co-op: The money publishers pay bookstores in exchange for promotions, placement, and events.
Co-op Pool: One way of determining how much co-op a bookstore can receive in a given year. Pools are usually based on a percentage of the store's previous year sales from that publisher.
Deckle-Edge: A rough or uneven cut to the pages of a book, so when the book is closed the pages have little peaks and valleys.
Discount: The percentage amount minus than the cover price of the book a bookstore must pay to purchase said book from the publisher or wholesaler.
Distributed Client: A publisher that is administered by a larger vendor. For example, Candlewick is a distributed client of Penguin Random House. For more information, click here.
Distributor: A company that handles the logistics of delivering books from a publisher to a bookstore. If the distributor is also a wholesaler, they purchase books from the publishers and then sell them at a slight markup to booksellers, allowing booksellers to save money by purchasing from multiple publishers in the same order. Ingram is the only major distributor in the trade; smaller distributors include Small Press Distribution (SPD), Bookazine, Microcosm, and Asterism Books. Most major publishers are also distributors for smaller presses, who are then their distributed clients rather than their imprints. For more information, click here.
Dump: A cardboard book display.
Endcap: Special retail display at the end of an aisle—usually seen in retail stores, including bookstores.
Endpapers: The endpapers or endpapers of a book (also known as the end sheets) are the pages that consist of a double-size sheet folded, with one half pasted against an inside cover (the pastedown), and the other serving as the first free page (the free endpaper or flyleaf).
Faceout: Placing books on a shelf so that the cover faces outwards.
First Edition: The initial publishing run of a book, which can consist of multiple printings. The First Printing of a First Edition is typically indicated by a full number line (including the number 1) on the back of the cover page. Subsequent printings will remove a number from the number line to indicate which printing it is.
Format: The specifications of the book as a physical item, eg hardcover, paperback, mass market, e-book, audiobook, board book, etc.
French Flaps: The inward-folded extension the cover of a softcover (paperback) book. This feature rivals Deckled Edges for classiness.
Frontline Bookseller: Anyone who works on the sales floor, generally having direct interactions with customers.
Frontlist: A publisher's list of newly published books.
Galley: An advance reader copy is a free copy of a new book given by a publisher to booksellers before the book is printed for mass distribution. They are bookstore property. (see also "ARC").
Genre: A term for all genres of fiction that are not literary realism, including Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, etc.
Handselling: The strategy of recommending a book (named for placing it in a customer's hand) leading to the sale of the recommended book.
Hardcover: A book bound between rigid boards covered in cloth, paper, leather, or film. (See also "Cloth Bound")
Hybrid Publisher: Hybrid publishing companies behave just like traditional publishing companies in all respects, except that they publish books using an author-subsidized business model, as opposed to financing all costs themselves and, in exchange, return a higher-than-industry-standard share of sales proceeds to the author.
Imprint: A wholly owned division of a publisher with a distinct brand. For example, Little, Brown is an imprint of Hachette Books Group. Some imprints have imprints as well. For more information, click here.
Independent Publisher: A smaller, typically mission-based publisher that is not wholly owned by another publishing company.
Independently Published Book: A euphemism for self-published. (See also "Vanity Press")
Ingram: one of our major book distributors, based in La Vergne, Tennessee.
ISBN: An ISBN is an International Standard Book Number. They consist of 13 digits and are calculated using a specific mathematical formula and include a check digit to validate the number.
Jacket: Refers to a "Dust Jacket," the cover sleeve over a hardcover book. Occasionally softcovers will have jackets as well.
Jobber: another term for wholesaler (see "Wholesaler")
Lay Down Date: The date booksellers are allowed to begin selling certain titles. The date is strictly enforced - put it on sale before, and there will be legal repercussions. (See also "SOS")
Mass Market: A small, usually non-illustrated, and inexpensive bookbinding format.
Midlist: Titles on a publisher's list that are not expected to be big sellers but are expected to have limited/modest sales.
Out of Print: No longer available from the publisher.
Pagination: Pagination is the process of dividing content into separate pages, either in printed documents or on websites.
Publisher: A person or company that prepares and issues books, journals, music, or other works for sale.
Regionals: Seven smaller trade associations representing independent bookstores in their respective regions (learn more here.) Also refers to the annual trade shows held by each of these organizations.
Remainders: Copies of a book that are slow to sell and can be purchased from the publisher or remainder wholesaler at a reduced rate.
Rep Group: A company represents a number of publishers and helps bookstores identify which books from those publishers will sell well in their stores. Bookstores place orders through their sales reps (see "Sales Rep"). Some rep groups work on commission with their publisher clients -- these are known as commission reps. For more information, click here.
Returns: If a book doesn't sell, it can be returned to the publisher for a credit on future orders. This is the tradeoff for publishers selling via a discount model.
Sales Rep: An individual who works for a publisher or rep group, whose job is to recommend forthcoming titles they believe will sell well in that store.
Sectioning: How a bookstore organizes its physical spaces to highlight specific types of books or items.
Shelf Talker: A sign on the bookshelf recommending a specific title; usually paper, usually folded beneath the books over the ledge of the shelf, usually hand-written.
Short Discount: A lesser discount offered by publishers on books that are expensive to print.
SOS: Stands for Strict on Sale. It means that the publisher's release date is a binding, legal contract between bookstores and publishers that they will not sell any copies of this title before that date.
Street Smart: See definitions to Lay Down Date and SOS.
Trade Paperback: A softbound book that is usually larger and more expensive than a mass market paperback.
Traditional Publisher: Traditional book publishing offers the author a contract and, in turn, prints, publishes, and sells your book through booksellers and other retailers. The publisher buys the right to publish your book, they own it and pay you royalties from the sales.
Vanity Press: A company that publishes books at a cost to the writer. In most cases, with a vanity press the author will either do the editing, formatting, illustration, and cover design or hire someone to do it.
Wholesaler: A middleman company that sells books from many different publishers. Some wholesalers are also distributors.
MORE TO COME!
ABA: The American Booksellers Association (www.Bookweb.org), the national trade association for independent booksellers. ABA provides education, resources, advocacy, and programming to support independent bookstores in the US.
ARC: An Advance Reader Copy is a free copy of a new book given by a publisher to booksellers before the book is printed for mass distribution. They are bookstore property. (see also "Galley")
Backlist: A publisher's list of older books that are still in print. This generally refers to book titles older than the current season.
Bestseller: A printed book, eBook, or audiobook that outsells other books in its category.
Binding: In the context of books, binding refers to the cover and materials that hold a book together. It includes the spine, cover boards, and any additional elements that keep the pages intact. (i.e. hardcover or paperback).
BISAC: The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) is a membership organization made up of a diverse slate of publishers, manufacturers, wholesalers & distributors, libraries, retailers and industry partners. What unifies them is the value they receive by joining and engaging with our committees, where work gets done that improves the industry. Our committees are where relationships get built and good ideas are surfaced, solving problems that affect two or more parts of the industry, with five core practice areas: metadata, rights, supply chain, subject codes (BISAC), and workflow.
Blurb: The copy on book covers or book dust jackets, promoting the book and the author or featuring testimonials from book reviewers or well-known people in the book's field. Also called flap copy or jacket copy.
Buying/Buyer: The bookstore's process of determining which books to stock/the individual who performs this task.
Cloth Bound (aka "Cloth"): A book bound with stiff boards covered with cloth. A type of hardcover.
Colophon: The logo of a publisher or imprint, usually found on the spine of a book.
Consignment (aka "Scan and Pay"): An agreement to pay a supplier of goods after the goods are sold. We have a consignment policy for local, self-published authors.
Comps: Books that are similar to a book in question, in genre, tone, subject matter, and/or potential appeal.
Co-op: The money publishers pay bookstores in exchange for promotions, placement, and events.
Co-op Pool: One way of determining how much co-op a bookstore can receive in a given year. Pools are usually based on a percentage of the store's previous year sales from that publisher.
Deckle-Edge: A rough or uneven cut to the pages of a book, so when the book is closed the pages have little peaks and valleys.
Discount: The percentage amount minus than the cover price of the book a bookstore must pay to purchase said book from the publisher or wholesaler.
Distributed Client: A publisher that is administered by a larger vendor. For example, Candlewick is a distributed client of Penguin Random House. For more information, click here.
Distributor: A company that handles the logistics of delivering books from a publisher to a bookstore. If the distributor is also a wholesaler, they purchase books from the publishers and then sell them at a slight markup to booksellers, allowing booksellers to save money by purchasing from multiple publishers in the same order. Ingram is the only major distributor in the trade; smaller distributors include Small Press Distribution (SPD), Bookazine, Microcosm, and Asterism Books. Most major publishers are also distributors for smaller presses, who are then their distributed clients rather than their imprints. For more information, click here.
Dump: A cardboard book display.
Endcap: Special retail display at the end of an aisle—usually seen in retail stores, including bookstores.
Endpapers: The endpapers or endpapers of a book (also known as the end sheets) are the pages that consist of a double-size sheet folded, with one half pasted against an inside cover (the pastedown), and the other serving as the first free page (the free endpaper or flyleaf).
Faceout: Placing books on a shelf so that the cover faces outwards.
First Edition: The initial publishing run of a book, which can consist of multiple printings. The First Printing of a First Edition is typically indicated by a full number line (including the number 1) on the back of the cover page. Subsequent printings will remove a number from the number line to indicate which printing it is.
Format: The specifications of the book as a physical item, eg hardcover, paperback, mass market, e-book, audiobook, board book, etc.
French Flaps: The inward-folded extension the cover of a softcover (paperback) book. This feature rivals Deckled Edges for classiness.
Frontline Bookseller: Anyone who works on the sales floor, generally having direct interactions with customers.
Frontlist: A publisher's list of newly published books.
Galley: An advance reader copy is a free copy of a new book given by a publisher to booksellers before the book is printed for mass distribution. They are bookstore property. (see also "ARC").
Genre: A term for all genres of fiction that are not literary realism, including Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, etc.
Handselling: The strategy of recommending a book (named for placing it in a customer's hand) leading to the sale of the recommended book.
Hardcover: A book bound between rigid boards covered in cloth, paper, leather, or film. (See also "Cloth Bound")
Hybrid Publisher: Hybrid publishing companies behave just like traditional publishing companies in all respects, except that they publish books using an author-subsidized business model, as opposed to financing all costs themselves and, in exchange, return a higher-than-industry-standard share of sales proceeds to the author.
Imprint: A wholly owned division of a publisher with a distinct brand. For example, Little, Brown is an imprint of Hachette Books Group. Some imprints have imprints as well. For more information, click here.
Independent Publisher: A smaller, typically mission-based publisher that is not wholly owned by another publishing company.
Independently Published Book: A euphemism for self-published. (See also "Vanity Press")
Ingram: one of our major book distributors, based in La Vergne, Tennessee.
ISBN: An ISBN is an International Standard Book Number. They consist of 13 digits and are calculated using a specific mathematical formula and include a check digit to validate the number.
Jacket: Refers to a "Dust Jacket," the cover sleeve over a hardcover book. Occasionally softcovers will have jackets as well.
Jobber: another term for wholesaler (see "Wholesaler")
Lay Down Date: The date booksellers are allowed to begin selling certain titles. The date is strictly enforced - put it on sale before, and there will be legal repercussions. (See also "SOS")
Mass Market: A small, usually non-illustrated, and inexpensive bookbinding format.
Midlist: Titles on a publisher's list that are not expected to be big sellers but are expected to have limited/modest sales.
Out of Print: No longer available from the publisher.
Pagination: Pagination is the process of dividing content into separate pages, either in printed documents or on websites.
Publisher: A person or company that prepares and issues books, journals, music, or other works for sale.
Regionals: Seven smaller trade associations representing independent bookstores in their respective regions (learn more here.) Also refers to the annual trade shows held by each of these organizations.
Remainders: Copies of a book that are slow to sell and can be purchased from the publisher or remainder wholesaler at a reduced rate.
Rep Group: A company represents a number of publishers and helps bookstores identify which books from those publishers will sell well in their stores. Bookstores place orders through their sales reps (see "Sales Rep"). Some rep groups work on commission with their publisher clients -- these are known as commission reps. For more information, click here.
Returns: If a book doesn't sell, it can be returned to the publisher for a credit on future orders. This is the tradeoff for publishers selling via a discount model.
Sales Rep: An individual who works for a publisher or rep group, whose job is to recommend forthcoming titles they believe will sell well in that store.
Sectioning: How a bookstore organizes its physical spaces to highlight specific types of books or items.
Shelf Talker: A sign on the bookshelf recommending a specific title; usually paper, usually folded beneath the books over the ledge of the shelf, usually hand-written.
Short Discount: A lesser discount offered by publishers on books that are expensive to print.
SOS: Stands for Strict on Sale. It means that the publisher's release date is a binding, legal contract between bookstores and publishers that they will not sell any copies of this title before that date.
Street Smart: See definitions to Lay Down Date and SOS.
Trade Paperback: A softbound book that is usually larger and more expensive than a mass market paperback.
Traditional Publisher: Traditional book publishing offers the author a contract and, in turn, prints, publishes, and sells your book through booksellers and other retailers. The publisher buys the right to publish your book, they own it and pay you royalties from the sales.
Vanity Press: A company that publishes books at a cost to the writer. In most cases, with a vanity press the author will either do the editing, formatting, illustration, and cover design or hire someone to do it.
Wholesaler: A middleman company that sells books from many different publishers. Some wholesalers are also distributors.
MORE TO COME!
