Publishing Lingo: 10 Publishing Terms All Authors Should Know

Do you know all of these publishing terms?

This week’s blog post is taking us back to some basics! For the debut writers out there, this one might be useful to you. Here’s a brief overview of ten publishing terms I think every writer should know.

1. Big Five

Big Five / Big 5 refers to the group of the biggest publishing houses (and therefore the ones with the deepest pockets who can comparatively pay higher advances!). The Big 5 publishers in the US are Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, and Macmillan. 

2. Advance

An advance is a sum of money that the publisher pays you, the author, to license your work. It’s money that’s guaranteed to come your way, and it’s usually paid out in 3-4 installments. The reason it’s called an “advance” is because it’s an advance against your royalties. 

3. Earn out 

Once you have made enough royalties to earn out the advance sum the publisher paid you, your advance is considered “earned out” and you start collecting royalty cheques. Before earning out, you don’t get paid royalties (seeing as you’ve already been paid an advance against royalties!). 

But even if your book never sells enough copies to earn out, you keep the advance money. You do not have to pay the publisher back for the advance. The advance is money the publisher is knowingly parting ways with, but it’s not a random, made-up number. Publishers do their own cost analysis and try to ensure that they only pay advances that they think they can earn back— otherwise, it’s bad for business! 

Here’s a cool calculator you can use to check when your book will earn out, or to just play around with for the sake of ~research~. 

4. P&L 

P&L stands for a profit and loss statement. This is the cost analysis statement that publishers put together when they’re considering acquiring a new title. It usually captures all costs of editing, production and distribution, royalties of author, overhead, and any discounts to booksellers and retailers. It calculates all those costs against what the profits might be. P&Ls are not an exact science, but it’s as close as a publisher can get since we’re all kind of working in professional gambling!  Read Jane Friedman’s in-depth look at P&Ls here. 

5. Print run 

A print run refers to the number of books that are printed in a single production cycle. Your publisher will determine how big or small your print run is. They will consider many factors when deciding on your print run including production cost, how many copies they estimate the book will sell, promotional efforts, and market trends. A smaller print run can be more cost-effective but it also means fewer copies in the hands of readers and in bookstores, and therefore less buzz for your book. This is why you’ll see writers on the internet talking about wanting their books to land with a Big 5 and have a “large print run.”

On average, small or indie publishers tend to have smaller print runs than Big 5 publishers (usually because of access to resources and cash). And “Big Books” that are highly anticipated and have garnered a lot of buzz (think the new Sally Rooney) typically get a larger print run. 

6. Pre-empt 

You might have seen this term used on Publishers Marketplace or in book deal announcements all over the internet. “So and So sold book X to publisher Y in a pre-empt”. But what does that mean? A pre-empt is a type of offer an acquisition editor makes when they’re so interested in a book that they offer a set (typically large amount) of money for the agent to take it off the table and not consider other editors. It’s essentially an editor saying “I love this so much, we’ll pay to be the only player.” 

7. Option clause 

The option clause is also known as the right of first refusal clause. But no one really calls it that because it’s long and boring! It’s the clause in your publishing contract that allows your publisher the first look on your next project. Typically, agents will try to narrow down and specify the language in an option clause so that, for example, if you’ve sold a rom-com, the publisher can have the first look at your next rom-com (specifically), and not just any type of work. In this case, if you write a thriller, you and your agent are free to shop it around. 

Yes, this clause promises that the publisher will be the first to consider your next project before other publishers, but it doesn’t mean a guaranteed sale. Your publisher can still turn down your next work. And even if they offer, you’re also allowed to turn them down. In either case, if you don’t reach an agreement with the publisher, you and your agent go out and submit to other publishers. 

8. Subsidiary Rights (commonly: sub rights) 

Subsidiary rights include any right that falls beyond your initial publication. That’s a complicated and somewhat inaccurate phrase, I know. But what I mean by “initial publication” here is the book publication in the language and format you’re originally licensing (Eg: You have a contract to license your book for North America, English in paperback, hardcover, and ebook). Sub rights are essentially rights that you can further exploit. These include: serial rights, foreign and translation rights, film and TV rights, audio rights, merchandising, etc. You can license or keep your subsidiary rights, or have a combination of both. Of course, it depends on what you negotiate with your publisher. There are specific sub-rights that publishers typically ask for (serial rights, e-book rights) and others that publishers typically don’t (film + TV). 

9. Blurb

I know we sometimes use the term “blurb” in the querying stages to describe your plot paragraph in a query, or the paragraph that reads like the jacket copy of a published book. But this is not what I’m talking about here. However, do keep in mind that the term is also sometimes used for that! 

Outside of querying, the term “blurb” is more commonly used in the industry to describe an endorsement of your book. It’s that quote you usually see on the front or the back of a book by a previously published author who readers might already know. Usually, before your book comes out, you and your publisher put together a list of authors who write in the same genre and who would be open to blurbing your book, or authors who you’d request a blurb from. Once you’re a published author, you’ll also get requests for blurbs from other authors. It’s the cycle of authorship! 

10. R&R 

R&R stands for revise and resubmit. An agent or editor can send you an R&R when they’re interested in your book and can see its potential, but they feel it needs revisions before they can consider it further. If you’re curious to learn more about R&Rs and why agents send them, read my blog post on R&Rs here. Many writers don’t come across R&Rs, so they don’t know what they are. Or they don’t know that even after they are agented, authors can still get R&Rs from editors when they are on submission with their agent.

And that’s it for this week, folks! If you have questions and want me to do a deeper dive on any of these terms / topics, drop me a question through the form below!