Book Publishing Terms: What Every Author Needs To Know

Transitioning from writer to author requires many things — beyond penning a great book. The world of publishing comes with its unique terminology, and we’re here to help you understand some common book publishing terms.

The self-publishing revolution has opened the door for so many writers to achieve their publishing dreams, all while affording unprecedented freedom to make their own design, editorial, and publishing choices.

That’s fantastic, and empowering. But you’re a writer, not a publisher, and there’s a lot that goes into producing and publishing a book and a whole set of jargon that goes along with it. We’re here to help you navigate all the processes involved with publishing a book, and this post will give you a leg up on some of the publishing terminology you’ll be hearing and using as you immerse yourself in the world of being a self-published author.

Publishing

When we talk about book publishing, we’re referring to producing your book — as a print book, eBook, or both — and making it available for sale on your personal BookBaby BookShop page and through our huge network of retailers and wholesalers (including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Powell’s Books, and so many more). Book production includes interior formatting and design, and it should include editing and rounds of proofs before making it available for sale.

Print On Demand

Not long ago, book printing was exclusively done on offset presses, which required order quantities in the thousands to make economic sense. For an independent or traditionally published author, that meant thousands of copies had to be printed of any given title, which required an enormous cash outlay on the front end with no guarantee of recouping that money from sales. With the advent of digital printing and advances in binding and production, authors and publishers can now affordably print small quantities — down to a single book — “on demand,” as needed.

Retailers have also adapted, which means they no longer need to have warehouses full of books in order to stock a title. They can print, or call upon a publisher to print, as a book is ordered — another revolutionary facet of “on demand.” BookBaby prints all of our authors’ books in our plant in New Jersey using the latest in digital printing technology to offer POD distribution to our authors. We print books at the demand of the retailer, wholesaler, or individual reader.

Pre-sale

Your book’s pre-sale period is the time between the moment you hand your book over to a retailer and the date when it’s available to be shipped to readers. For Amazon, this is a pre-set time period — no matter who the publisher is, there is, at minimum, a 60-day period between the day the book’s title, metadata, and information are sent to Amazon and the day your book can be shipped to your readers.

Release Date

From a book retailer’s perspective, the official “release date” is the date your book will be available to be delivered to customers and available for sale in brick-and-mortar bookstores. That said, your book will likely to be available for purchase for some time prior to the release date as a “pre-sale.”

We recommend a pre-sale period of 60-90 days for print books, which means your book would be available to order through online retailers but wouldn’t ship until the release date. Pre-sales are important because they let the retailers and wholesalers know how much interest there is in a book. The retailers and wholesalers use that data to order copies in advance of the release date so they can get them to readers on the official release date.

It’s important to note that you can promote and sell your book prior to the official release date. In fact, you should be promoting your books heavily prior to release. By the way, when you publish with BookBaby, you have the option to make your book available for purchase (and delivery) via BookBaby BookShop ahead of the official release date.

Another note: it’s possible to set different release dates for the print and eBook versions of a title. In most cases, both versions should be released on the same date, but if there is a good marketing or promotional reason to release them separately, it is an option.

Trim Size

Trim size is the publishing/printing industry term for the size of the book, measured in inches. A 6″ x 9″ trim size means the books (and its pages) are six inches wide by nine inches tall. Different genres have different trim size expectations, though ultimately it’s up to you to determine what trim size is right for your book.

Editing

Book editors do more than make sure your i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed — they ensure your writing is fluid and poignant. The best way to guarantee your book is perfectly polished before it’s in print is to invest in editing services from a source you can trust.

There are different types of book editing — including proofreading, copy editing, line editing, and developmental editing — for different stages of the publication process. You should be aware of what kind of professional editing your manuscript needs and what is involved with each type.

Interior Formatting

While editing is about correcting and finalizing the text of a manuscript, interior formatting is the term used for the process of designing, laying out, and producing a print-ready book interior for your trim size. This includes selecting the font and text size, formatting the headers and footers, adding page numbers, determining the number and width of columns, setting margins, designing chapter icons, and everything that appears between the covers of your book.

Printed Book

This is what you imagine a book to be: a physical object with a front and back cover and pages in between, printed with the words of your book on them.

eBook

An eBook is a digital file that requires an electronic device to display the contents of the book.

Kindle

Kindle. A Kindle is Amazon’s proprietary eBook reader. There are many other types of eBook readers, including Barnes & Noble’s NOOK, the Kobo, and smartphone apps, to name a few.

Fixed Layout. Most eBooks feature a dynamic layout, which means there are no page numbers — there really aren’t pages at all. Depending on the size of the eReader you are using and the size you set your fonts, different readers will see different content on their screens. Some books — picture books and graphic novels, for instance — require pages that stay uniform and not flow like a typical eBook novel. These books require a fixed layout, where images and text are “affixed” on each electronic page, just like their printed-book counterparts, so the pages look the same, regardless of which eReader you use.