Publishing Houses Jargon

I remember, when I first began to think about sending my work out for publication, being faced with some terminology that I did not understand. For those of you in the same boat, here are a few interpretations of some of those words.

The slush pile: All manuscripts and proposals/query letters that arrive at a publishing house with no editor's name attached to them. (Some publishing houses refuse to read slush.)

Over the transom: Another term for 'slush pile'.

the Backlist: These are those books that just keep on selling, year after year. If one of your books makes it to the backlist, you've arrived.

the Frontlist: This is a list of new books coming out. Only a very small percentage of these will go on to the backlist.

the Midlist: These are the books that do not have the potential to become best-sellers. Many publishing houses no longer accept or publish these kinds of books because of the low return on their investment.

Genre: This is the type of book - romance, western, crime and so on.

Trade Publishing: This is commercial publishing of general interest books, as opposed to scholarly and reference, or academic (although there is sometimes a crossover).

Trade Paperback: These are the larger sized paperback books, hardcover size with paper covers.

Mass Market: Mass Market books are small paperbacks.

Multiple Submissions: This is when the manuscript or book proposal is sent to more than one house at a time. Sending submissions to one publishing house at a time is too time consuming.

Remainders: This is how the publishing house gets rid of excess stock after the book has had all the sale it's going to have. Authors generally have the choice of buying up these remainders at a much reduced cost.