This week in my MFA publishing course we’ve been studying words — not writing words, but words specific to the world of publishing. As someone who studied linguistics, I’m torn between how to describe this new vocabulary. Is it jargon? Is it a lexicon? Is it terminology? My best assessment is that it is a little bit of all of these. In reading over lists of words, many of which would be familiar in non-publishing contexts, we were to write about and reflect upon unknown words or phrases and how these may impact or have a place on our writer’s path. Because I often think in poetic frame, my first thought was to create a haiku with these words and phrases.
Black swan, long tail, DAD
Backlist, ONIX, remainder
Colophon, frontpiece.
Against-the-grain, bulk
Earn-out, card deck, leasing, floor
Single-title-author plan.
Preprint, mobi, slush
Back matter, EAN, PPB
Midlist, sweet spot, yeah!
In putting this haiku together, I did aim for the word that I’m most drawn to as I think it is perhaps what I am aiming for: midlist. From the American Association of Publisher’s list of commonly used terms, midlist refers to, “Books with a strong intellectual or artistic bent which have a chance of significant success but are not assumed likely bestsellers.” The last line of my haiku illustrates how I feel about this term: sweet spot. Yes, it would be lovely, gratifying and all those similar feeling words to have a best seller. But in reality, I’m not even aiming for that in undertaking an MFA and this year-long study of publishing. My sweet spot is intellectual writing, with an artful leaning. Whatever I’m writing I know has a pretty good chance of being successful as I define it (a constantly evolving evaluation). Aiming for midlist feels attainable. Accomplishable; in a publisher’s catalog, perhaps in the poetry or monograph section, maybe memoir and maybe in that special section of mash-ups that cross all of those areas. Browsing Politics and Prose’s shelves last weekend showed there are plenty of books that fall into this mushy area: some art, some prose, not on the front shelves, but not in the clearance section either. Solidly midlist.
Learning the publishing side of words can feel a bit daunting — from the language to the layers of the business; it’s hard to imagine at this stage ever being fully versed in this language when I’m already fluent in two other vocabularies of business (higher education teaching and nonprofit management). On this too, after a week of pouring over lists of words, I think “midlist” is the spot to aim here as well: aim for high middle, narrow down the focus, work to apply other vocabularies to the learning to create yet another mash-up.
3 Coffees A Day 