Publishing: Jargon buster

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• B2B - business-to-business (information shared between businesses).
• Backlist - titles that are being published for the second time or more.
• Buying calendar - the points in the year where retailers decide what to buy from publishers.
• Cross-selling - using one product to promote another from a different sales channel.
• Digitisation - taking the format of hard copy (on paper) and turning it into digital content which can be used online and via mobile phones.
• Disk date - when the digital files are submitted to the printers.
• DRM - digital rights management.
• DTP - desk top publishing.
• E-books - books that can be downloaded to an E-book reader.
• Emerging markets - markets that have yet to be exploited. Currently, Eastern Europe and China are seen as emerging markets within publishing.
• Extent - total pages in a book.
• Flat plan - a document that shows how the pages will fall into place.
• Frontlist - titles that are being created from scratch.
• Jacket - the front of the book.
• Loss leader - a bestseller title that the publisher discounts to the bookseller, enabling the publisher to negotiate the sale of other books, including newer authors, which otherwise the bookseller might not be prepared to buy.
• Masthead - details of publisher and editorial staff, generally printed on the title page of a publication.
• Media sales - the selling of advertising space within a magazine, newspaper, journal or website.
• Pagination - page numbers.
• PDF - portable document format.
• RAP date - ready at printers.
• Repro - reprographics: getting images and content ready for print.
• Sale or return - when the retailer makes a deal with the publisher to return books they haven’t sold.
• Slicing and dicing - the manipulation of content in electronic form in order to allow the user to select and pay only for the information they need.
• Slush pile - manuscripts that the publisher does not yet want to publish.
• STM - science, technical, medical.