Glossary of Publishing Terms

Author Services Company

A company that provides authors with an easy way to publish, print, and distribute their book, usually for a setup fee and a charge per book. Author services companies usually make their profit margin in the printing.

Binding

Perfect Bound: Bound by gluing pages to the spine.
Saddle-Stitches: Books bound in sections, often with staples.
Wire-bound: Spiral wirebound books.
Wiro: Spiral wire binding covered with a printable spine.

Layout Program:

Computer programs used to design a page, document, brochure, magazine, or book. Popular applications are Adobe In Design and Quark.

pdf files

Portable Digital Format files created by Adobe Acrobat. Many printers want pdf files rather than
specific application files like Word or InDesign.

Printing

Digital Press:

Electronic files are output directly, without the use of plates or film.

Letterpress Printing:

Old fashioned printing process, resulting in raised surfaces. Now used for specialty work, fine art printing, and limited edition books.

POD (Print on Demand):

Books printed on a digital press–lower quality and higher price than an offset press–“on-demand” – or only when ordered.

Short Run:

Digitally printed from 1-500 books.

Offset Printing:

Ink is applied to a plate; image is transferred to a blanket, which is then printed on paper. This is a high-quality, low-cost way to print a book, but usually requires 1000 copies minimum.

Kinds of Publishing

Self Publishing:

Creating, editing, printing, distributing, marketing, and selling the book yourself, or outsourcing some tasks.

Independent/Indie Publishing:

An author or group of authors form a small press that publishes one or more books.

Traditional Publishing:

Publisher buys the author’s book for an “advance” and, after (or if) the advance is made back with book sales, a percentage of the profits, usually 8-12%.

Vanity Press / Subsidy Publishing / Cooperative Publishing:

Publisher shares printing / publication costs with author.

E-Books

Digital Rights Management (DRM):

Electronic rights management prevents readers from sharing books with others. DRM uses technology to recognize the device with which the book was downloaded, and only authorizes that device to display the book.

EPUB:

An XML format for reflowable text is becoming a standard method by which to display text on various e-book readers and devices.