By Boni Wagner-Stafford

June 20, 2024

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Ten Common Publishing Terms Aspiring Authors Need to Know


If you’re new to the world of publishing, you’ve probably already heard some publishing terms being used that you’re not sure of what they mean. Don’t worry, though: You’ll get the hang of these terms very quickly and one of these days you’ll sound like a pro yourself!

To get you started, let’s demystify some of the most common publishing terms you’ll hear when you start the process of getting your book published. Here’s our top ten publishing terms.

Publisher

The word “publisher” can have two meanings: It can refer to the company or publishing house that will publish your book or it can refer to a specific person you’ll be working with to get your book published.

When we refer to the person, we’re talking about someone who oversees the entire process of turning your idea into a book and getting it to the reader. They’ll help you develop your manuscript, define the vision for the book, commission the cover design, come up with a marketing strategy, and the like. Depending on the publishing company, the publisher’s responsibilities may overlap somewhat with those of a managing editor, who specifically oversees the editorial process.

Literary Agent

A literary agent liaises between the writer and the publisher. They submit the writer’s work to the publisher and negotiate a publishing contract. Many traditional publishers won’t even look at your manuscript if you didn’t submit it through an agent. If you work with a smaller indie or hybrid publisher, an agent is helpful but not essential.

Manuscript Submission

The manuscript is the unpublished book: It’s the complete story but there may still be changes before it gets published. A manuscript submission is the act of sending your manuscript to a publisher or an agent for consideration. If you do this without them having requested it, it’s called an unsolicited manuscript. Especially traditional publishers may place your unsolicited manuscript in a slush pile, where they may or may not look at it at some stage. It’s always best to look at the publisher’s or agent’s submission guidelines first to see how they prefer writers to submit their manuscripts, if at all.

Query

Some publishers and agents prefer that you send them a query first. In this context, a query is essentially a sales pitch: It’s a one-page letter in which you try to get them interested in your book. If you’re successful in this, they’ll then ask you to send your manuscript for consideration.

Book Proposal

A book proposal is similar to a query in that it’s designed to get the publisher or agent interested in your book. But with a query, you already have a manuscript ready to be sent as soon as the publisher asks for it. With a book proposal, you typically don’t have a manuscript yet.

Book proposals are specifically for nonfiction. The idea is to convince the publisher that you have a story worth telling, and why you’re the right person to tell that story. So, your book proposal should contain information such as an outline, the target audience, a chapter overview, comparable titles, a marketing plan and a little about you as the author. Book proposals are typically between 50 and 100 pages in length.

Rights

In publishing, rights define who can legally do what with your work. Usually, you as the author retain copyright to your own work. Your contract will stipulate whether you or the publisher has rights such as subsidiary rights – paperback rights, film rights, and the like – as well as translation rights and foreign rights, where you can sell your book in other countries.

Imprint

The imprint is the name under which the publisher will publish your book: the brand name, as it were. The bigger publishers tend to have many different imprints, each focusing on a different type of book. For example, Penguin Random House has around 300 imprints, including Harmony Books for self-help titles, Vintage Books for trade paperbacks, Penguin Classics for classic literature, and Ladybird Books for children’s books.

Print-on-Demand (POD)

Traditionally, publishers would print a certain number of books and distribute them to be sold. Once all of these copies had been sold, they’d either stop selling the book because it was out of print now, or they’d have another batch or print run printed. However, if a book wasn’t selling, they’d eventually have to pulp all those extra copies and they’d lose thousands of dollars.

Print-on-demand or POD is a way to reduce this financial risk and is especially popular with smaller publishers. As the term implies, it’s a way of printing copies of a book as they’re ordered. Some of the most popular POD services are Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, IngramSpark and Barnes & Noble.

Royalties

Royalties refer to the percentage you get paid for each copy of your book sold. That percentage is stipulated in your publishing contract. Typically, a traditional publisher will pay you in the region of 15 percent of the sale price for each hardcover, 5 percent for each paperback and 25 percent for each ebook. Hybrid publishers tend to pay higher royalty rates but you have to do more work yourself to get those sales.

Advance

The author’s advance is probably the most misunderstood term in publishing. It’s a lump sum of money the publisher pays you before publication of your book, for instance when you sign the contract and/or submit a manuscript. It’s very useful when you need to be able to focus on working on the different drafts of your book but still need to pay the bills.

However, an advance is actually more like a loan: It’s paid against future royalties. So, you won’t start earning royalties until you’ve sold enough copies of your book to pay that advance first. If your book doesn’t sell, you’ll have to repay the advance from your own pocket.      

Over to You

Is there a publishing term you’d like us to add to this top-ten list? Let us know by leaving a comment.

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