A Is For Advance, B Is For Bible (Series)...

Jessica Faust of the literary agency BookEnds has posted a Publishing Dictionary, which will be of particular use to new folks in the business, new writers trying to figure out what their editors are talking about, and the curious of all ages.

She could have gone into more detail on some of the entries -- this is publishing, there's always another nitpicky detail to worry about -- but that's a minor quibble. If I did a similar list, it would be less useful, because I wouldn't be able to stop myself from going into baroque detail about how some people call ARCs "bound galleys" and BEA "ABA," and what those alternate terms reveal about their users.

(I also quibble at her definition of "marketing," which covers only one aspect of the job -- but I didn't have any idea what marketers did before I became one, so I can't blame her.)

So: it's a great introduction, but there's a lot of nuance and depth you can get into once you understand this stuff. Though, if you're not doing this for a living, you probably don't want to know all of the deeper, more complicated details.

[via Editorial Ass]