Back matter (or end matter): Material, such as appendixes, notes, references, author's biography, bibliography, glossary, and index, placed after the chapters of a book.

Back-of-the-room sales: Book sales made at table, usually in the back of or just outside an auditorium, at an event such as a conference where the author is speaking.

Binding: The process, such as stitching or gluing, used to attach the pages of a book to it cover.

Bleed: When a photograph or illustration bleeds, it extends beyond the normal edge of a page or cover, so that, when the paper is trimmed, the illustration extends to the actual edge of the book, with no white space surrounding it.

Blurb: A brief quote from a reader, often someone famous, which is used to promote a book. Blurbs are often printed on book covers or on the first recto (right-hand) page.

Body copy: The main section of a book, between the front matter and the back matter. In an ad, it's the words below the headline.

Boldface: Letters, words, phrases, or sentences, printed in heavier and darker print for emphasis.

Book block: A PDF file containing the entire book except the covers.

Bookland: A fictitious country, created to reserve an EAN (originally European Article Number) Country Code for books, regardless of their country of origin. Bookland is located between Lower Slobovia and Grand Fenwick, and is east of Chelm and west of Oz. The country codes for Bookland are 978 and 979.

Bricks-and-mortar retailer: A physical store, as opposed to an online business. Some companies, such as Barnes & Noble, are both. Some people use the singular "brick-and-mortar." Since buildings use multiple bricks, I use the plural form.

Casewrap: A hardcover book binding without a dust jacket.

Cataloging in Publication (CIP): Book data on the copyright page of a book, and used in library catalogs

Character set: The complete set of letters, punctuation, spaces, etc. in a particular font.

Chick lit: Not to be confused with Chiclets candy-coated gum, it's chick literature -- the print­­ equivalent of chick flicks. The books are often romantic and written for women in their 20s and 30s. There are sub-genres including teen, matron, Latina, Christian, and Asian.

Clip art: Drawings and photographs that have minimal or limited restrictions on use. Years ago, the artwork was printed on sheets of glossy paper and literally "clipped" apart and pasted into page layouts. Today, most clip art is digital.

Coated paper (coated stock): Smooth paper with a coating of clay or other substances that allows it to better reproduce photographs than the uncoated paper used in this book. When used in books, coated paper generally has a glossy surface. When used for printing photos, it can have glossy, matte, or other finishes.

Compressed: An extremely narrow typeface, narrower than condensed. Used in movie posters and ads.

Condensed: A typeface that is narrower than normal, but wider than compressed.

Consignment: A business method common in book publishing that allows dealers to return unsold products to the manufacturers (i.e., the publishers).

Content editor: The editor who is responsible for subject matter of a book as well as its sentence structure. This editor may suggest (or require) major changes to a manuscript for truthfulness, accuracy, organization, story flow, and writing style.

Co-op (co-operative) advertising: A plan where two businesses share the cost of advertising. Typically, a manufacturer (which could be a publisher) pays a percentage (usually 50%) of the cost of advertising products made by the manufacturer. Generally there are restrictions on media selection and ad content, and limits to the expenditure.

Copy: Words written for or appearing in a book, article, ad, etc.

Copyeditor (CE, copy editor): This is the editor who concentrates on form, rather than on content. She (usually not he) corrects grammar, spelling, punctuation, and inconsistencies.   

Copyright: The government-backed right to copy, publish or modify a creative work in fixed media, such as a book or even a website.

Co-venture: A business entity where expenses and responsibilities are shared by more than one person or business.

Crop marks:  Small lines on a page or cover design to indicate where it will be trimmed after printing. Nothing important should be placed outside the crop marks.

Crowdfunding (crowdfinancing): A method of raising money for a project, such as book publishing, by appealing to large numbers of people for small donations. It's often done through social media such as blogging and Facebook. Sometimes donors make outright gifts to support a project they believe in. Sometimes, there is an expectation of repayment, perhaps with interest. Sometimes, the donors are listed as sponsors of the project.

Cut line: newspaper jargon for the caption under a photograph or illustration. Before they published photographs, newspapers used engravings, which were often called "cuts."

Developmental editor: An editor, usually employed by a large publisher, who deals with the overall organization of a book rather than the fine-tuning done by a copyeditor. A developmental editor may suggest changes in sequence and deletion or addition of material, and may even write additional material as a ghostwriter.

Dingbat: Printers' slang for small, icon-like drawings of hearts, snowflakes, and other shapes and items that can be used to dress up a document. Also, what Archie Bunker frequently called wife Edith on All in the Family.  

Discount: A percentage taken off the retail price of a book that is retained by a distributor, wholesaler, and retailer.

Display type: Type used for book titles, chapter titles, subheads, etc. that is larger than the type used for the text.

Distributor: A "middleman" company that buys books from a publisher and sells them to a retailer. Unlike a wholesaler, a distributor usually has a sales force that calls on booksellers. A wholesaler usually just fills orders.

Domain name: A Web address, also known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator).  

DPI (Dots per Inch): A measurement that represents the resolution ("sharpness") of a printer or scanner.

DRM: Digital Rights Management, the modification of a digital file, such as a book, song, or movie, to keep it from being cop­­ied in violation of its copyright.

eBook (electronic book): A book formatted and distributed as a data file rather than printed on paper.  There are various eBook formats used with dedicated "readers," cellphones, and on PC screens.

Edition: A particular version of a particular book. First editions are sometimes valuable.

End matter: See "Back matter."

Endnote: See "Footnote."

Endorsement: See "Blurb."

E-tailer: An online retailer.

Fleuron: A flower-like decoration used to enhance a book or to divide sections.

Flong: One of my favorite words! A flong was originally a dry, papier-mold made from type text which could be curved to fit the cylinder of a rotary press. Later flongs were wet, and made of plastic or rubber. 

Flush-left/ragged-right: An informal typographic design in which the lines of text are aligned against the left margin but "run wild" on the right, as opposed to "justified" type. Flush-left is nearly universal for websites and is widely used in advertisements and periodicals. It is less common in books. See "justified" and next entry.

Flush-right/ragged-left: The opposite of above. It's seldom used for long text, but may be effective for headlines and short sections of text that have to appear distinctive.

Folio: A page number. Also a leaflet, a page size, a typeface, and various other meanings. A drop folio is a page number in the footer at the bottom of the page, like this page. It's also a feature on some luggage such as a pilot's case. A blind folio is a page number that is counted, but not printed.

Font: A specific typeface (e.g., Verdana) in a specific style (e.g., bold) and a specific size (e.g., 11 points).

Footer: Words or numbers below the main text on a page

Footnote: A reference or explanatory detail printed at the bottom of a page. Footnotes can be hard to keep in the right place as a book evolves, so "endnotes" either at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book may be easier to handle. If there are lots of notes, I recommend putting them at the end of each chapter to avoid forcing readers to scan through many pages of notes at the end of a book.

Foreword: An introduction to a book, written by someone other than the author; part of the front matter.

Formatting: At least three meanings: (1) the process of "laying out" text and illustrations to convert a manuscript into a fin­ished book page design; (2) modification of letters, numbers, or punctuation to make them bold, italic, etc.; (3) conversion of one type of data file into another, such as a Word file into a PDF (Portable Document Format).

Frontispiece: Seldom found in modern books, it's an illustration, often an engraving, facing a book's title page.

Front matter: The information that goes on the pages between the front cover and the main text of a book. It usually includes a title page, a copyright page, a table of contents, a dedication, and various introductions.

Fulfillment house: A company that provides some or all of the order-handling work for a publisher, such as warehousing, packing, shipping, and record-keeping.

Galley proof (galley, galleys): Galley proofs get their name from hand-set type. Years ago, a typesetter would prepare a book page by arranging pieces of type into a metal tray called a galley. The galleys for a book would be used to print a small number of copies for editing and proofreading, and some would be provided to reviewers and booksellers. After the author and editors marked up the galleys, the typesetter would make corrections and books would be printed and shipped. Today, it's more common for publishers to provide reviewers with ARCs rather than galleys.

Genre: A book's general category, such as chick lit, crime, sci-fi, historical fiction, fantasy, how-to, porn, business.

Gerund: A part of speech frequently used, but seldom thought about after third grade. It's a noun made from a verb, like "thinking," "eating," and "writing."

Ghostwriter: A writer, paid by a publisher or another writer, to write or co-write a book. Some ghostwriters are unnamed in the book, some are listed as "with...."  

Graf: Journalists' timesaving slang for "paragraph."

Graphic (graphic element, graphic image): Something on a page other than text or space, such as a photograph.

Grayscale: Graphic images with no color -- just black, white, and shades of gray. Many grayscale images were converted from color.

Gutter: The vertical white space centered between the blocks of text and illustrations on two facing pages.

Header: The area above the normal text on a page, often containing the book name, chapter, and page number.

Halftone: A method to prepare a photograph or other graphic image for printing by converting it into thousands of little dots of various sizes. If the dots are small enough, the printed image appears to be continuous, like a real photograph. The reso­lution of a halftone screen is measured in lines per inch.

Hand selling: A personal book recommendation in a store.

Hanging indent (hanging indentation, hanging paragraph): A page design technique in which the first line of a paragraph is flush left and the following lines are indented, as in this section. Also called an outdent.

Hardcover book: A book with a cover made of cloth or leather, glued to a heavy cardboard. Hardcovers are more durable and may look better than paperbacks.

Independent publisher (indie):  A small publishing company that is not a subsidiary of a larger publishing or media company. It can be a self-publisher who also publishes books for others.

Initial caps: A Typesetting Style Where The First Letter Of Each Word Is Capitalized (set in "uppercase").

International Standard Book Number (ISBN): A unique, 13-digit number that identifies a version of a book. Until 2007, ISBNs had 10 digits.

ISPITA: Industrial Strength Pain in the Ass (much worse than a mere PITA), common in publishing.

Justified: A typography design in which lines of text reach all of the way to the left and right margins of a page or a column. The first and last lines of a paragraph may be shorter than the others.

Kern: That's the way some people born in Brooklyn pronounce "coin." In typography, to kern means to adjust the spacing between two adjacent letters. It can also mean to squish two letters together so they overlap to avoid awkward white spaces. WA is one common use of kerning, and the two letters fit together unusually well. A kern is also a part of one letter that reaches into another letter's personal space.

Keyword: An important word or phrase that is typed into an online search engine to find relevant web pages. Websites can be "optimized" for keyword searches.

Layout: The overall design of a page, book, or other graphic project. The preferred verb form is "lay out."

LCCN: Library of Congress Control Number used to identify books. The LCCN is frequently printed on the copyright page of a book, and used by many libraries.

Leading: Extra space added between lines of type. It rhymes with "bedding," and gets its name from thin strips of lead that were inserted between lines of type when type was set by hand. With modern typesetting, a designer can specify, for example, 11 point type with 13 point leading. This means that two points of extra space would be added between lines.

Lede: The first sentence or two in a news story, with the most important information. It's pronounced "leed," but spelled "lede" to avoid confusion with another typographic term, "lead," which rhymes with "bread."

Line art: A graphic image made of solid lines, usually against a white background, common in cartoons and charts in modern publishing. Years ago, before photography and halftone printing, line art was the standard format for printed illustrations.

Line editor: Often the same as a copyeditor, but sometimes a line editor will make modifications, not just corrections.   

Literary agent: A person who tries to interest a publisher in an author's work, and who usually is involved in contract negotiation and sale of subsidiary rights. If a deal is made, the agent gets a percentage of the author's income. Sometimes, an author can make a deal with a publisher without an agent, but this is uncommon with larger publishers.

Manuscript: Text and graphic elements of a book pre­­­pared by the author and usually submitted to an agent, editor, or publisher. It can be either on paper or in a digital file.  

Mass-market paperback: A small, less-expensive version of a hardcover book that is usually printed after the hardcover version has been on sale for about a year. Often not as nice as a trade paperback because of rough paper, small margins, and poor photographic reproduction.  

Media kit: Also called a press kit, it's a package of promotional material sent to writers and editors and intended to announce and gain publicity for a new book. There are now online media kits as well as paper-based kits.

Media release: See press release.

News release: See press release.

Offset printing: The common method used for printing large quantities of books, magazines, newspapers, and brochures. Ink is spread onto metal plates with etched images of the pages, then transferred to an intermediary surface such as a rubber "blanket," and finally applied to paper by pressing the paper against the intermediary surface.

Outdent: See "hanging indent."

Out of print (OOP): A book no longer being printed by a publisher. Alley Oop was a syndicated comic strip, created in 1932 by V. T. Hamlin. He wrote and drew the strip through four decades. The stories combined adventure, fan­tasy, and humor, and were often satires of American sub­­urban life like the later Flintstones cartoon series. Alley Oop, the strip's title character, wore fur shorts, lived in Moo, and rode a dinosaur named Dinny.

Overrun: An extra quantity of books printed beyond the requested quantity. Printers often print additional copies of a book to make up for possible defective copies. If the extra copies are not needed to make up the required total, the customer is usually required to pay for an overrun of up to 10%.

Over the transom: See "slush pile."

Page proofs: Printed typeset pages that look like the interior of a book, but without the covers. They may not be trimmed to the size of the final book pages.

Parchment: The skin of a sheep or goat prepared for use as a material for writing or printing. Paper can also be made to look like real parchment. It's often translucent.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC): An advertising payment system in which the advertiser pays the operator of a website, particularly a search engine, every time someone clicks on an ad that could lead to another website.

pBook: The opposite of an eBook, it�s Printed on Paper.

PDF (Portable Document Format): A digital document file format, developed by Adobe Systems, which allows a document to be accurately reproduced on multiple computers using different operating systems.

Perfect-bound: The binding method used for most paperback books. Pages are glued to the spine.

Permission: Agreement from a copyright holder to permit another person or entity to use copyrighted material.

PITA: Pain In the Ass (not limited to publishing).

Prepress: Preparation of a manuscript for printing. POD printing requires minimal prepress.

Press kit: See "Media kit."

Press release:  Also called a news release or media release, it's an announcement distributed to the news media with the hope of receiving publicity for a new book or other product, person, or event.

Print-On-Demand (POD): Manufacturing books in small quantities -- even one -- as orders are received.

Print-ready: The digital data files (usually in PDF format) that have been checked and are ready to be printed.

Proofreading: Reading of typeset pages to find errors. Years ago,  proofreaders would compare a typeset page against the author's final edited manuscript. With self-publishing, the author may produce the equivalent of typeset pages so proof­reading is just another reading before printing, with no comparison to a previous generation of text.

Publication date: The official date on which a book is allowed to be sold. It is often fictional and arbitrary because many books are sold before their "pub date."

Publicist: Formerly call a "press agent," it's a person who tries to generate media coverage for a book or an author by contacting the media. The publicist may also produce and distribute publicity materials and assist an author with personal appearances and other promotional activities.

Remainders: Books that are discounted to low prices, often one dollar, because they are outdated, damaged, selling poorly, or excess inventory. A book may be "remaindered."

Returns: Books sent back from a bookstore to a publisher for a refund or credit because they did not sell.  

Royalty: Payment to an author after books are sold, usually a percentage of sales in the 8 to 15% range. There's often a sliding scale for which higher rates are paid when sales reach certain thresholds. The rate may be applied to either the cover price or a publisher's net receipts. Pay attention.

Rule: In typography, it's a line used for separation or decoration. Rules are not called "lines" except for a "hairline rule," which is 1/2-pt high.

Sans serif (gothic): A typeface style like Arial -- simple, with no serifs or other decorative effects. Sans serif faces are commonly used for chapter names and subheads in books.

Self-publishing: What this website is all about -- a writer's becoming the publisher of her or his own books.

Sell sheet: A one-page flier, describing and promoting a new book, aimed at booksellers, distributors, and the media.

Serif: A thin line, attached to the bottom of letters that makes them easier to read. Serif faces often have other decorative effects such as the "flag" attached to the letter "h."  Serif faces are generally used in books, but not on websites.

Short discount: A smaller-than-usual discount from the cover price of a book, common with POD books sold online. A short discount is typically 20 or 25%, compared to the standard discount of 50% or more with traditional sellers.

Sic: Latin word for "thus." It's used to indicate that the preceding error or unusual wording or punctuation was in the source, and not copied incorrectly. The word should be italicized and within square brackets like this: [sic]. "Sic transit gloria mundi" has nothing to do with ailing trains or buses. Look it up.

Signature: A large sheet of paper, holding multiple book pages and printed on both sides. A signature is folded and trimmed to become a group of pages. Years ago, printers added their signatures to indicate that pages were OK.

Slush pile: Unsolicited manuscripts received by an agent or a publisher and often piled up on a desk, a shelf, or the floor, awaiting evaluation. These are also described as "over the transom" manuscripts. The phrase refers to the horizontal bar above a door and below a hinged window provided for ventilation in an office without air conditioning. Writers allegedly tossed their manuscripts over the transom of a publisher's office and hoped for the best.

Small caps: Small capital (uppercase) letters the same height as lowercase letters.

Small press: A small publishing company that produces a relatively small number of titles each year, often in niche subjects or for specialized audiences.

Spine: The narrow section of a book that connects the front and back cover. It's visible when a book is on a shelf, and displays the book's title.

Style book: A book, produced by a publishing authority such as The Associated Press or The New York Times, that dictates standards for spelling, punctuation, etc.

Style sheet: A set of rules prepared by a writer, editor, designer, or publisher that dictates the standards for spelling, punctuation, listings, spacing, fonts, abbreviation, etc.  

Subhead (sub-headline): A distinct-looking word or phrase indicating the start of a section. It�s often in large, bold type.

Substrate: Material that is printed on, such as paper or cloth.

Subtitle: Words below the title of a book which explain or amplify the title. A title should "work" without its subtitle.

Subsidiary rights: Rights sold by a book publisher for reuse of a book's contents in other forms, such as magazine excerpts, movie scripts, or books in other languages.

Subsidy publishing:  An uncommon publishing arrangement in which the publisher and author share the cost of publishing. Many vanity presses hide behind the subsidy label.  

Supported self-publishing: Another term for a vanity press that a writer pays to produce books.  

Swash: An extra bit of decoration added to a printed letter, often an extended or exagger­ated serif on the first letter in a paragraph.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): One of several formats for compressing graphic images to make smaller digital files. The images in this book are TIFFs. Websites generally use JPGs or GIFs. TIFF file names end in .tif.

Title page: The recto (right-hand) page at the beginning of a book that shows the book's title, subtitle, author's name, publisher, and perhaps other information.

TK: In the graphic arts, it's shorthand for "To Come," a notation made on a layout to indicate that an element (such as a photograph or chart) will be provided later and space should be provided for it.

Tracking: Adjusting space between letters by the same amount. Also called letter spacing.

Trade paperback: A book with a cardboard cover, bigger pages and better grade of paper than used for mass-market paperbacks. Trade paperbacks are often original books, not reprints.

Trade publishing: The traditional system of book publishing in which a writer finds a publisher that pays an advance and perhaps royalties on books sold.

Trim size: The final height and width of a book page and covers after the book is bound and trimmed.

True Type:  A type font standard, originally developed by Apple in the 1980s to compete with Adobe's PostScript fonts. Microsoft soon added TrueType fonts to Windows, most notably the ubiquitous Times New Roman and Arial.

Typeface: A distinct family of type, such as Rockwell, Alger­ian, Verdana, Andy, Elephant, or Franklin Gothic. 

Typesetting: Formatting a document on a computer to produce page layouts suitable for printing. In the past, actual pieces of type were arranged to form words and pages.

Typo: Short for typographical error, an error on a typed or printed page, sign, web page, etc caused by equipment or finger failure -- not by lack of knowledge.

Ucase: Short for upper case (capital letter). Often used as a verb as in, "Hey Sammy, ucase all the initial letters in that headline."

Underrun: Book printing that results in fewer books than ordered due to damage (spoilage) during printing. An underrun of up to 10% is considered acceptable.

University press: A publishing business owned by a college or university. Most of the books are written by professors who teach or do research at the institution.

Unsolicited manuscript: A manuscript sent to a publisher that did not request it in advance. Most large publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator): A web address.

Vanity press (Vanity publisher): A publisher paid by authors to publish their books.  

Virgule: A forward slash (/). It's also the French word for "comma."

Virtual Book Tour (VBT): An online simulation of a physical book tour, where an author would travel to be interviewed and sign books. In a virtual version, an author "visits" websites and blogs to be interviewed and to answer questions, and may write something special or post a book excerpt.

Wholesaler: A "middleman" company that buys books from a publisher and sells them to a retailer. Unlike a distributor, a wholesaler usually just fills orders and does not have an active sales force.

From Become a Real Self-Publisher: Don't be a Victim of a Vanity Press, by Michael N. Marcus